One of the first Silicon Valley start-ups to go public in a long while–OpenTable–is expected to come to market this week, with venture firms hoping it will prove a tasty treat for Wall Street.

Whether the $42 million initial public offering of the online restaurant reservation service proves to be a bellwether or not is unclear since its business has–despite strong revenue gains over the last two years–run up operating losses for much of its lifespan of more than 10 years.

In any case, OpenTable is most definitely a creature of Silicon Valley. Its CEO, Jeff Jordan, is a former top eBay exec, and one of its VC backers is Benchmark Capital, among others.

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Little known factoid: Every time a penny drops onto a start-up, a venture capitalist gets his wings.

Well, OK, not so much, but it’s one way to look at it.

An example of that, though, is this video interview I did with serial Silicon Valley entrepreneur Satish Dharmaraj, who has been on the ground floor of a number of tech start-ups, sold one (Zimbra to Yahoo for $350 million in late 2007) and has now made his first investment as a new VC.

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Another former Yahoo exec has landed at a Silicon Valley venture firm. This time, well-regarded serial entrepreneur Satish Dharmaraj will become a partner at Redpoint Ventures, according to sources.

The move of Dharmaraj is interesting, given that he is not starting a new company or taking a post as an entrepreneur-in-residence at the venture capital firm, which many operating execs do after leaving a company.

Sources close to the situation said Dharmaraj would focus on business software, the enterprise arena and infrastructure at Redpoint.

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Bucking a trend of contraction in the venture industry, Accel Partners today announced that it had raised two funds totaling $1 billion.

The well-known VC firm said that it had closed the $480 million Accel Growth Fund and the $525 million Accel London III.

The first will be managed from its Palo Alto, Calif., HQ, focusing on “growth equity” across several sectors, while the London fund will be managed there and aim to invest in early-stage and growth companies across Europe and Israel.

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Here’s a video of star VC John Doerr reciting his 10 tips for start-ups to follow in the economic downturn, dispensed at a VentureBeat roundtable event on the downturn yesterday.

And the Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers VC didn’t need a massive, noisy PowerPoint like Sequoia Capital to make his quick and clear points, which he delivered in four minutes flat.

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Is it just me or does the sudden prospect of venture capitalists–the very investors who fueled the Web 2.0 valuation insanity with their typically egregious overfunding of start-ups–lecturing about the bleak economy and the need to tighten belts seem just a tad ironic?

It’s kind of like Washington politicians who handed out-of-control bankers one deregulation after another in exchange for campaign donations now mounting their high horses and decrying Wall Street greed in the current economic meltdown.

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In BoomTown’s ongoing meet-the-VCs-and-cringe series, here’s a chat I recently had with Highland Capital Partners’ Bob Davis.
I have known Davis for a long time from his previous life as Co-Founder and CEO of Lycos, the then-third-placed portal and one of the shooting stars from Web 1.0.
And I would have to say he cracked me up [...]

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We have been remiss in posting our meet-the-VCs-of-Silicon-Valley-if-you-dare video feature, what with all the Yahoo goings-on to keep track of. But we are back with another riveting episode, with guest star Mitchell Kertzman of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners.
A longtime tech exec, Kertzman is one of the funniest players in the tech sector, and was [...]

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Yet another music video parody is making the rounds. This time, it’s from Revision3 Gazette and called “VC Baby.”
No, it’s not about Mark Zuckerberg, although his very talented sister Randi provided the vocals here, which are lip-synched by the comely lass singing to her VC to the tune of “Santa Baby.”
Our favorite line: “It’s Web [...]

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I had lunch with well-known angel investor Ron Conway recently and we had a lively discussion about a range of topics, including the venture business (better than ever!), innovation (better than better than ever!), monetizing video content on the Web (best of all!) and more.
Ron also had a bit to get off his chest about [...]

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I always pay attention when anyone calls a media executive smart and, when it is a newly minted one, I pay particular attention. In a post today, BuzzMachine’s Jeff Jarvis points to a story in The Wall Street Journal also today about CBS’s renewed efforts to plunge into the digital space under the leadership of [...]

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