Intel announced a $3.5 billion initiative “to support investment in U.S.-based growth-oriented industries and detailed a commitment to significantly increase jobs available this year for recent college graduates.”

The headline of Intel’s press release says, “Invest in America Alliance to Fund American Technology Companies, Create Jobs for College Grads.” The story was covered bytechnology reporter Claire Cain Miller in the  New York Times, as well as by many others.

Miller begins her article by saying, “Technologists have been worrying aloud for years that America is losing its competitive edge as other countries invest more heavily in technology education and innovation.”

The alliance is led by Intel and is supported by 24 leading venture capital firms and corporations, aims to further anchor America’s competitiveness on the global stage. Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini said the announcement represents ”an investment in the country’s innovators and a signal to the global marketplace about America’s commitment to innovation and future competitiveness.” (read the full transcript of Otellini’s speech).

Venture Capital firms joining the Invest in America alliance include:

• Advanced Technology Ventures
• Braemar Energy Ventures
• Bridgescale Partners
• Canaan Partners
• DCM
• Draper Fisher Jurvetson
• Flywheel Ventures
• Good Energies
• Institutional Venture Partners
• Investcorp Technology Partners
• Khosla Ventures
• Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
• Menlo Ventures
• Mohr Davidow Ventures
• New Enterprise Associates
• North Bridge Venture Partners
• QuestMark Partners
• Sevin Rosen Funds
• Storm Ventures
• Telesoft Partners
• Updata Partners
• U.S. Venture Partners
• Venrock and Walden International

Companies joining the Invest in America alliance include:

• Accenture
• Adobe Systems Incorporated
• Autodesk
• Broadcom Corporation
• CDW LLC.
• Cisco
• Dell
• eBay
• Inc.
• EMC Corporation
• GE
• Google
• Inc.
• HP
• Liberty Mutual Group
• Marvell Semiconductor Inc.
• Microsoft Corporation
• Yahoo!

When Rainier client CopperGate was acquired by Sigma Designs a couple months ago, plenty of people made some nice sums of money. What I didn’t know at the time was that Tmura, the Israeli Public Service Venture Fund would convert options granted by CopperGate six years ago into $100,000!

Founded in 2002 to increase the involvement of the high-tech community in non-profit activity in Israel, Tmura receives donations of equity from (mainly private) Israeli and Israel-related high-tech companies and uses the proceeds from successful “exits” such as a public offering or acquisition to fund education- and youth-related initiatives in Israel. “Tmura” is the Hebrew word for “change” or “metamorphosis” and also means “value for money”; it is also a play on the word “truma”, which means “donation”.

CopperGate was Tmura’s 21st such exit event – exits to date have generated more than $2,600,000 for charity, which has benefited more than 20 different non-profit organizations in Israel.

Tmura grantees are mainly youth oriented. For example, Kadima youth centers have received Tmura money to help operate a network of youth clubs in poor neighborhoods. In another example, Tmura has also helped an Israeli humanitarian aid organization called Latet (Hebrew for “to give”). Latet aims to mobilize Israeli society to greater involvement in the humanitarian field, through heightened social awareness and the fostering of values such as mutual responsibility and giving.

I love the basic concept behind Tmura – everyone wins in an exit event. Especially the kids.

Speaking at Venture Beat’s Smart Grid conference the other day, VC superstar John Doerr (of Kleiner Perkins) declared that “Greentech could be the largest economic opportunity of the 21st century.”

Doerr compares the evolution of the Smart Grid to the initial, disorganized adoption of the Internet, but voiced his concern about the U.S.’s position in the global cleantech business.

Doerr said. “Even if you don’t believe in global warming, or if you don’t believe this is going to be the biggest global business… the U.S. is not going to win unless our entrepreneurs start to lead — and not just our business entrepreneurs, also our policy entrepreneurs.”

In underscoring the opportunity, Doerr pointed out that while the Internet represents a $1 trillion economy, the energy business  is a $6 trillion dollar economy(!).

And in a soundbite built to stir the passion of pioneering entrepreneurial zeal, Doerr declared, “The super grid is going to be the last great network we build in our lifetimes.”

See the writeup on Doerr’s talk by Eric Wesoff in GreenTechMedia.

Excerpted from a New York Times op-ed piece, this issue could become quite crucial in the innovation ecosystem. 

VARIOUS pieces of legislation now making their way through Congress would require private pools of investment capital to be registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The goal is to curtail abuses and protect the public from questionable practices. The proposed laws would cover the range of funds that deal in derivatives, auction-rate and mortgage-backed securities, highly leveraged transactions and a slew of other instruments so complicated as to defy description.

In registering, these funds would need to open their books to the government so that they could be duly monitored, thus limiting further risks to the financial system.

Unfortunately, however, with good intentions, the Obama administration and some members of Congress are aiming this legislation at all pools of private capital. That includes venture-capital funds, which pose no systemic risks and which, especially now, should be kept free of any new reporting rules and allowed the freedom to flourish.

Venture-capital funds deal solely with privately purchased equity securities in start-up companies, which are not traded in public markets. They have as their limited partners only people who meet the S.E.C.’s definition of a “qualified client” (meaning they possess a substantial amount of money to invest). These investors, who typically allocate a small percentage of their portfolios to venture capital, are familiar with risk, but it is long-term risk, stretching out 7 to 10 years. They put their faith not in publicly traded securities but in entrepreneurs, emerging technologies and new markets.

One of the co-authors, Alan Patricof, was on CNBC’s Squawk Box a couple weeks ago.

Full article in the New York Times