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Dave McClure has fingerprints all over the social media map, so you have probably seen him on his blog, his Twitter account (which has 15,880 followers as of this writing), or Facebook. Dave is an angel investor who recently joined a VC fund (the Founders Fund).The accepted wisdom today is that angels have buried their wallets and run for the hills. So it seemed like a good time to interview an investor who is very active at the seed level.

Dave McClure has fingerprints all over the social media map, so you have probably seen him on his blog, his Twitter account (which has 15,880 followers as of this writing), or Facebook. Dave is an angel investor who recently joined a VC fund (the Founders Fund).The accepted wisdom today is that angels have buried their wallets and run for the hills. So it seemed like a good time to interview an investor who is very active at the seed level.

Index Ventures today announced the closing of a €350 million early-stage fund, Index Ventures V. Early stage? Wow! And early stage + Europe = Double Wow! How does Index Ventures raise such big funds for early-stage ventures when most investors are still trying to figure out if Treasury Bonds are too risky? In short, it is because it has already invested in some of Europe's biggest successes, most notably Skype, MySQL, and Last.fm. When you get those kinds of exits ($4.1 billion for Skype, $1 billion for MySQL, and $280 million for Last.fm), investors want to give you more money to try again.