The Wall Street Journal released a report ranking the most active venture funds of 2010. I wanted to take a minute to just point out that OATV is not on the list. In fact, I would venture that OATV will never be on a list like this. Its not our goal and its not our strategy.

There are a lot of different ways to skin the seed investing market. A popular approach is to make a large number of small investments. This model spreads risk out across a lot of different companies and if managed properly, i.e. not taking board seats, can allow a firm to get broad exposure to a number of exciting companies without spreading the individual partners too thin. I tip my hat to the guys who can pull this off.

At OATV we do things a little differently for seed guys and a little similar to more traditional VCs. In general, we make 2-3 new investments per partner per year that we lead or co-lead (rarely are we simply following someone else's termsheet). We’re typically investing $500k or more in each round as opposed to the $50,000 to $250,000 popular among other angels and seed funds. And, generally, we’re taking board seats with each investment we make. Of course we’ve broken these rules in the past and reserve the right to break them in the future as well, but that’s our model.

When I come across a list like this I always want to see if we’ve made it. But each time I work my way to the bottom I find we’re not included. So, this time I wanted to find closure with that feeling and go public with who we are and what we do. I think it sets us apart from a number of firms and I like that.