I’ve written in the past about some of the new models emerging for startup investing, including co-ops, incubators and super angels. They’re all driven by the same mission: creating a more efficient way of jumpstarting new businesses. But a new program created by The Founders Fund is truly unusual in its approach. The Silicon Valley firm plans to hand over $25,000 to a dozen or so entrepreneurs who can then choose new companies to bankroll, reports The Wall Street Journal. The fund will then reserve the right to invest up to $250,000 more when those companies go out for their next round of capital.

Dubbed the TechFellow Awards, the unique approach speaks to how the venture capital model is evolving as open source technologies and outsourced Web services drive the cost of Internet business creation down.

It is certainly an interesting idea, relying on entrepreneurs to help choose promising business ideas. But after reading the Journal story, I am sill not entirely sure how it will work or what the benefits are for taking this relatively small amount of money.

Maybe it’s the connections. The Founders Fund has lined up some of the biggest names in tech to help choose award winners, including LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, TechCrunch publisher Michael Arrington, former Yahoo CEO Terry Semel and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

New models are emerging in the venture business, and I am sure we will see more over time as investors adapt to a world of few IPOs and smaller M&A deals. 

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and Microsoft revives Spitfire pub under compromise arrangement  

Microsoft has reached an agreement to move forward with a new campus pub — reversing course after having second thoughts and surprising the bar owner with a lease termination last week. Under the compromise plan, the Spitfire pub will serve beer and wine in the afternoons and evenings, after 3 p.m., but it will be open during those hours only for scheduled gatherings and catered events.

"I feel great," said pub owner Jonathan Sposato. "This is really cool. Ultimately it worked out. I thought it was really great that both sides could come back and engage in a dialog and work something out, and be creative and listen to each other’s concerns."

The next test is how Microsoft employees react to the news. The previous cancellation of the pub in the new Entertainment & Devices Division campus disappointed many of them, sparking grumblings on Facebook and elsewhere. Under the new arrangement, the employees will get a bar, but they won’t be able to just drop in for a beer unless they’re part of a reserved event.

However, Sposato said he still expects the venue to be busy every night, with multiple slots available for booking and plenty of Microsoft employees eager to use the new facility.

Spitfire will also be open for normal lunch hours. The pub won’t be serving alcohol then, but that was already the plan. Sposato plans to rehire the 22 employees he was forced to lay off after Microsoft’s previous decision. The pub is now aiming to open by the end of the month, Sposato said, adding that he expects the arrangement to work for him and his partners from a business perspective.

Microsoft spokesman Lou Gellos confirmed the news, saying the company was happy to be able to reach a compromise. The company said last week that it had second thoughts about having a bar in the middle of business setting, but the new afternoon and evening arrangement is in line with Microsoft’s existing policies for catered employee and company events where alcohol is served.

Gellos called the arrangement "a hybrid" that combines elements of a traditional bar with something appropriate for a corporate environment.

"Being that we’re in the middle of a business campus, we had to be sensitive to the fact that we’re a business," Gellos said. He said Spitfire and Microsoft were able to come up with "a creative way to find that happy medium."

The switch to reserved events at Spitfire in the evenings gives the company a little more control over the situation, and ensures that there’s a beginning and an end to the events held in the bar. 

Inside the Spitfire pub on the Microsoft campus.

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and YouNoodle and the TechFlash 100  

What startup companies are grabbing the most traffic and attention on Twitter, blogs and the mainstream media? That’s the question that YouNoodle is trying to answer.

I was fascinated with the concept when I wrote about it back in February, but also noted that Seattle area companies were either missing from the directory or were underrepresented.  Since then, I’ve chatted with the folks at YouNoodle who were nice enough to create a specialized index that ranks Seattle area startup companies on a scale of 0 (completely under the radar) to 100 (a household brand on the verge of an IPO).

The result is the TechFlash 100, a list that changes in real time and attempts to show which startups are gaining ground and which ones are falling behind.  

To come up with the TechFlash list, I worked with YouNoodle co-founder Kirill Makharinsky who incorporated companies from Marcelo Calbucci’s Seattle 2.0 list and Kevin Foreman’s list of venture funding deals. I excluded some companies, including biotech firms since they aren’t so much about building buzz and traffic as they are saving the world. 

Makharinsky and I also filled in the gaps with a few other companies from our own respective databases. (Some companies are not included since YouNoodle does not have enough data on them, though Makharinsky said he wants to improve the list over time. You can add your startup company here.)

YouNoodle uses a number of services to come up with its quantitative measurement, including Crunchbase, Compete.com, Alexa, Twitter, Technorati and Daylife.

Like I’ve mentioned on several occasions about the Seattle 2.0 Index, this is more of a fun exercise than a true measure of a startup company’s value.  But I thought it would be interesting to share, especially since VentureBeat, Wired and The Daily Telegraph have their own versions.

I figured it was about time Seattle got its due.

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