What's this? This is an unbiased just-the-facts news timeline ('newsline') about Ron Conway, created by Newslines contributors. Become a contributor

Ron Conway

Ron Conway80 posts

Ron Conway is an American investor and venture capitalist born in San Francisco in 1951. He has invested in at least 650 startups via his fund, SV Angel. He is involved in politics, advocating immigration reform and efforts by the Silicon Valley tech industry to pursue policy objectives. He worked for National Semiconductor, Altos Computer Systems, and Personal Training Systems. He is renowned for extensive networking, including involving Arnold Schwarzenegger, Shaquille O’Neal, Henry Kissinger, and Ashton Kutcher in tech investment, among others. He previously contributed to companies in the Y Combinator startup seed program. He is married and has three sons.

Latest News view > Click for Biography view
2012

Disrupt NY interview

Interview0 Comments

Arrington interviews Conway and Lee at the event. Conway says he is an executive investor in SV Angel and Lee is managing the fund.

But I have a huge vested interest…I get to come in and help entrepreneurs, I get to do what I enjoy

Lee responds to Arrington’s question over rumors the fund is looking to raise $400 million, saying it is looking at investment, but declines to give details:

We are exploring all options

31 Mar, 2012

Denies ‘pay-for-play’

0 Comments

Lee denies that favoring companies backed by Conway in return for political support. He confirms that he has intervened to try to prevent a 14% tax on rentals arranged over Airbnb, and to keep city taxi regulators from banning Square. Lee:

This is less about Ron Conway and more about sf.citi and how we can help companies that are giving back to San Francisco

23 Mar, 2012

Bloomberg interview

Interview0 Comments

Conway talks about valuations:

Right now…a typical startup is in the $3 million-$5 million range

He says valuations are creeping up to around $6 million-$7 million range but are not overvalued, and M&A is still a ‘great exit opportunity’ for the startups as Google, Microsoft and even Apple are making acquisitions.

In the next year probably 10-15% of the portfolio will get acquired

On privacy issues:

Consumers are getting used to a more open environment on the internet so the privacy issues are really a moving target…Twitter, Facebook, Google are very sensitive to the privacy issues

He says hundreds of millions of social feeds show consumers aren’t backing away.

Ron Conway Says Startup Valuations Are `Creeping Up': Video

16 Feb, 2012

Closes seed fund at $20m

0 Comments

Conway closes the fund with around 15 investments. He says oversubscription by family and friends doubled its size to $20 million. He says he has identified three megatrends where he plans to invest the money – crowd-sourcing realtime data like Twitter, Foursquare, and Quora; social media like Twitter and Facebook; and social commerce like Groupon and Gilt Groupe.

Tech Crunch interview

Interview0 Comments

Conway talks with Arrington at the Tech Crunch office to talk about trends in the tech industry.

There’s two big trends that we see that are going to become billion dollar industries, one of them is real-time data which would be Twitter and what we call the real-time ecosystem, which is really any company that employs crowd-sourcing or collective wisdom to create this new corpus of real-time data on the web, which is the most valuable data on the web.

He says Foursquare and Quora are also examples of real-time data, and clarifies SV Angel isn’t invested in Quora. Growth in Facebook and Twitter alone is enough to confirm a second trend:

The other mega-trend is that the web is becoming more social…the phenomenon is that consumers are willing to share more about themselves…this phenomenon is growing to create huge commerce opportunities on the web

Ron Conway on SV Angel

10 Feb, 2012

Fortune feature

0 Comments

Conway talks with the magazine about his network:

Entrepreneurs, because they need money, they are willing to share their crystal ball with someone like me. That’s the best thing ever.

18 Jan, 2012

SOPA demonstration

0 Comments

Conway joins a protest at City Hall in San Francisco. He proposes having the advocacy groups TechNet and Net Coalition innovate a solution:

I have a constructive idea that I would like to propose publicly to Congress and to our neighbors to the south, why don’t we try to innovate a solution to the piracy issue…let’s do what we’ve always done before, which is solve problems with technology, not against technology

Ron Conway Speaks Out Against SOPA

13 Jan, 2012

SF.citi initiative launched

0 Comments

Mayor Lee announces the series of initiatives, known as San Francisco Citizens Initiative for Technology & Innovation and supported by Conway and Tech Crunch‘s Heather Harde. Lee:

Last year with our Mid-Market payroll tax and stock option exemptions, as well as during my campaign and our administration’s priorities, we have worked hard to attract and recruit high-tech companies and jobs to San Francisco

2011

Startup School 2011

0 Comments

Conway talks about the defining qualities of entrepreneurs, his early days at Altos Computer, PTS, and Snocap. Thinking big is a must:

Many, many of our companies don’t think big enough…there’s some big companies, it could be bigger so as ambitious as you want to be, go for it.

18 Oct, 2011

Invests in Dropbox

0 Comments

SV Angel joins Benchmark Capital, Goldman Sachs, Greylock Partners, Institutional Venture Partners, RIT Capital Partners and Valiant Capital Partners. From the previous roster, Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners, and Hadi and Ali Partovi participate. The round is reported at $250 million and values Dropbox at $4 billion.

3 Sep, 2011

Twilio Q&A

0 Comments

Conway answers questions for the company – in which SV Angel has an investment – about hot markets, his investment thesis, and whether there is a bubble. On tech trends:

At SV Angel, we have a chart of “mega-trends” that we follow closely. The first and most obvious is social. We see a new kind of entrepreneur emerging in social. We call them “Behavioral Entrepreneurs.” These behavioral entrepreneurs understand that hardcore algorithms are no longer essential for success. Great UI and UX are becoming the new IP. Thanks to the low cost of computing, these entrepreneurs find innovation in human behavior, not pure technology.

22 Jun, 2011

Disrupt backstage

0 Comments

Conway and Lee talk to Tech Crunch‘s Sarah Lacy backstage at the event about continuing growth in tech. Conway:

Silicon Valley and New York are spawning even more important companies, and more of them, because the internet watershed is not over yet. It’s still early days.

Conway says the industry is close to a recruiting crisis which underscores the growth:

We are going to get as bad as 1998

Lee on how angel investors contribute:

There are lesser evils than a lot of really bright, talented engineers who want to give it a shot

Disrupt Backstage: Ron Conway and David Lee

May 2011

Invests in Pinterest

0 Comments

Conway invests in the site along with Firstmark, Bessemer, and other angels. The round is reported at $10 million for a $40 million valuation.

29 Jan, 2011

Founders each get $150,000

0 Comments

Y Combinator founders receive $150,000 each via Milner and Conway’s Start Fund. The investment will be convertible debt, which converts into equity in later rounds, with no cap and discount, the most entrepreneur-friendly terms.

[mashshare]

17 Nov, 2010

Web 2.0 conference

0 Comments

Conway talks about the investment list that he calls his Crystal Ball:

The companies that we are investing in have three entrepreneurs today, are the Twitters, Facebooks and Googles of four years from now…

He introduces 12 entrepreneurs from portfolio companies including Votizen, Hipmunk, and GroupMe.

Web 2.0 Summit 2010: Ron Conway, "The Crystal Ball"

11 Nov, 2010

Invests in AirBNB

0 Comments

SV Angel joins the Series A round with Sequoia Capital and Greylock Partners. A total of $7.2 million is raised. Chesky:

Our vision is to continue to build a global community marketplace