New VC Fund Wants Only Facebook Apps

Investor puts exclusive attention on site he thinks is worth $100B
By Colleen Barry,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 14, 2007 12:26 PM CST
New VC Fund Wants Only Facebook Apps
Facebook.com's mastermind, Mark Zuckerberg smiles at his office in Palo Alto, Calif. in this Feb. 5, 2007 file photo. Rapidly rising Internet star Facebook Inc. has sold a 1.6 percent stake to Microsoft Corp. for $240 million, spurning a competing offer from online search leader Google Inc. The deal...   (Associated Press)

Venture capitalist Lee Lorenzen is so enamored of Facebook that he started an investment fund just to finance developers creating applications for the social network site. Not only is Lorenzen investing in a month-and-a-half-old industry, last month at a conference he said Facebook might be worth $100 billion, more than six times the $15 billion valuation that came with Microsoft's purchase of a 1.6% stake.

Lorenzen says people have asked him if he's drunk or on crack, and told him he's an idiot. "I view myself as this voice in the wilderness," he explains. He thinks that Facebook's recently introduced social ads, which link products with the names and faces of friends who've bought or endorsed them, will turn Facebook into a giant virtual mall. (More Facebook stories.)

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