Venture capital firms are definitely taking note of the seed stage opportunities. From what little I know about the VC business, I believe the problem isn't that the money doesn't scale to make lots of small investments. The problem is that people's time doesn't scale. Fred Wilson can't keep up with all his emails, and adding more people to the firm isn't going to solve the problem. On the other hand, although having a public "VC" firm like a public stock market would solve this problem in a great way ("invest in the startups you're interested in"), the SEC enforces laws to prevent willy-nilly selling shares to the public (blue sky laws an all that). Makes sense.
So that's why we have sites like KickStarter and I think you will see a lot more of that kind of thing going on to fund entrepreneurs in the next 5-10 years. Which is a good thing, IMHO.
I have a few ideas along these lines, but no money to execute them at the moment. They are fairly simple but have a lot of moving parts, involving lawyers, settings things up, etc. If anyone is curious as to my ideas about improving seed funding for everyone, contact me at my email address. http://magarshak.com/contact . Especially if you work at a VC firm and want to spin something off like this :)
So that's why we have sites like KickStarter and I think you will see a lot more of that kind of thing going on to fund entrepreneurs in the next 5-10 years. Which is a good thing, IMHO.
I have a few ideas along these lines, but no money to execute them at the moment. They are fairly simple but have a lot of moving parts, involving lawyers, settings things up, etc. If anyone is curious as to my ideas about improving seed funding for everyone, contact me at my email address. http://magarshak.com/contact . Especially if you work at a VC firm and want to spin something off like this :)