Hotshot Venture-Capital Firm Benchmark No Longer Has A Website
Benchmark, a venture-capital firm known for backing eBay, Twitter, and Instagram, used to have a run-of-the-mill website with a list of its partners and investments.
Now it has a single page with its mailing address and Twitter account, @benchmark.
The minimalist approach is not unheard of in the venture-capital industry. Andreessen Horowitz, a young firm known for its novel practices, kept a one-page website through late 2010. In October of that year, it launched a sparely designed site with links to partners' blogs, events, and job openings at portfolio companies.
Here's how Benchmark partner Matt Cohler explained the change on Quora, a question-and-answer site he backed:
Read Quote of Matt Cohler's answer to Benchmark: What happened to Benchmark's website? on Quora
Fortune's Dan Primack, who first noticed Benchmark's change, notes that it goes against the trend of venture-capital firms practicing increased "transparency" about their operations, and could lead to hassles for Benchmark as entrepreneurs shotgun it with inappropriate pitches.
There is something to be said, however, for keeping things simple. Sequoia Capital recently redesigned its website, and in the process dropped Color, a controversial and troubled investment, off of its pages—an accidental omission, subsequently corrected, the firm said at the time.
We think all of these venture-capital firms have it completely wrong. They should all dump their websites for mobile apps. With real-time notifications. And digital term-sheet document signing. Tablet-ready. In the cloud.
Here are the before-and-after shots:
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