According to investments reported in the Crunchbase database, this winter investment dollars flowing to startup companies reached low point not seen since May 2009.

Even more concerning, on Monday the National Venture Capital Association reported that venture-backed IPO exits fell to a 3 year low in the first quarter of 2013, while M&A was at its lowest point since 1995.

According to the article:

The number of venture-backed IPO exits during the first quarter of 2013 fell 58 percent compared to the first quarter of last year. For the first quarter of 2013, 77 venture-backed M&A deals were reported, 10 of which had an aggregate deal value of $984.3 million, a 73 percent decrease from the first quarter of 2012. This marks the slowest quarter for number of disclosed deals since the first quarter of 1995*, when eight disclosed deals were completed.

“First quarter IPO and acquisitions activity is often subdued as year-end reporting and forward planning take priority, but this year political, taxation, and sequestration concerns weighed even more heavily on the exit market for emerging growth companies. Therefore, activity was especially slow,” said John Taylor, head of research for NVCA. “That said, public market valuations have been up recently, 2012 financial statements are being finalized now, and quality companies tell us they are starting the process toward an exit later in the year. Despite having waited for the right opportunity to move forward, the 2013 class of companies that goes public or gets acquired will have to be solid. Barring significantly adverse events, we expect stronger volume in the second and third quarters.”

*emphasis added

I’m unclear why the tech press did not report on this, and can only speculate they were too busy curating lists of April Fools Day pranks to notice. Or maybe they thought this was a bad joke from the NVCA?

Over the past few weeks I’ve been indexing groups of startups, starting with the Y Combinator index and 500 Startups index. I’ve received a lot of requests for other indexes, and the company whose portfolio everyone wanted to look at was that of the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

Portfolio Overview

Andreessen Horowitz has an impressive list of exited companies in 3 IPOs (Facebook, Groupon, Zynga) and 3 acquisition from high profile companies: Nicira (acquired by VMWare), Instagram (acquired by Facebook), and Skype (acquired by Microsoft).

For this post my research covers companies that have not yet exited.

Andreessen Horowitz Consumer Startup Index

Andreessen Horowitz Enterprise Startup Index

The enterprise index is entirely based on traffic at this point, since Facebook MAUs aren’t useful for this segment of companies. We are working on collecting more useful revenue / unit economics data for ranking these companies and know this does not accurately reflect their progress. For example Apptio is in the #31 spot but is preparing for a possible IPO.

Methodology

The index takes into account website traffic ranking globally, as provided by Alexa, along with a weighted average of Facebook monthly active users (MAUs). While traffic is only one part of the story, how it changes over time can provide a useful proxy for evaluating how the company’s reach and attention received from others. There are many other indicators of a companies health that I will take into consideration in future indexes, but for now this is presented as a very simple overview of the companies. I split apart the consumer vs. enterprise companies to make it more of an apples to apples comparison.

I have also included Quantcast rankings, as many people seem to think they are more credible. Overall I found their data set had too many gaps to be useful, although we may weigh it into the average in the future.

Editor’s Note: This is the first index of this portfolio so it does not show each company’s change in rankings over time. I will show that in the next index of this portfolio, one month from now.

Missing Companies

These companies are taken from the AH website, Crunchbase, AngelList and other public announcements. If I missed something please let me know in the comments or email me at danielle (at) refer.ly

This post is part of my continuous coverage of Y Combinator Demo Day for the Winter 2013 Class. You can see all publicly launched companies from today’s presenters here, Watsi is currently ranked #7.

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While Watsi will probably not take in capital on traditional VC terms, I hope they can capture the imagination of some folks in the audience and gain new donors.

Today Watsi, a non-profit for funding medical treatments, is presenting on stage at Y Combinator Demo Day by cofounders Chase Adam, Jesse Cooke, and Grace Garey. The company made quite a splash back in January when they were announced as the first non-profit to receive funding from YC.

Hilarious by @paulg “There’s one company here today that’s a nonprofit. An intentional nonprofit!”

— Sundeep Peechu (@speechu) March 26, 2013

I am admittedly a bit of a curmudgeon when it comes to donating to charity, but after seeing Watsi present yesterday and reading this post “The Bacon Wrapped Economy” about the end of cultural patronage as we know it, it got me to thinking. Maybe this is exactly the kind of platform people like me can get behind.

The East Bay Express paints a bleak picture the future for philanthopy, suggesting that our outcomes-focused giving will fail to build the kinds of institutions that have perserved American culture for the past 300 years.

And according to Medak and other members of the art world, it’s not just the donors themselves who are changing; it’s the entire ethos — and that may mark a change in a system that’s been more or less the same since the Renaissance. “A lot of those philanthropic dollars are now going to programs with measurable outcomes,” Medak said. “This shift toward a more transactional relationship in philanthropy, where you give something and expect to get something concrete back, has continued to escalate. The entrepreneurial infatuation we have now — and I don’t mean that in a loaded way — comes with a notion that the things we’re investing in should have a potential to [make] returns. It’s antithetical to the kind of philanthropy that has built institutions in this country.” Medak didn’t mention the logical, eventual corollary to this — that an end to institution-building philanthropy can also mean an end to the institutions themselves — but it doesn’t feel entirely far off.

I’m not so bearish. In fact, I wonder if the Internet can finally bring the meaning and accountability that has been lacking for young donors who won’t be building a hospital in their name, but simply want to feel they’ve made an impact on an issue they care about.

Old Money, Old Mindset?

The post goes on to explain that most patronage typically comes from older generations who have had a lifetime to accumulate their wealth. I can hardly complain – visiting the local museums, structures, monuments, artwork and other results of this philanthropy is a pleasure. I would never make the argument that this is an either/or situation where all funds should move away from arts and toward solving the world’s problems.

However, I think charitable giving needs to be aligned with the values of the people donating money, and it’s possible that those values have shifted for a younger generation toward institutions that solve real world problems.

In the case of Watsi, the public is clearly in support of a new institution that works to support those in need of medical attention around the world. Operating like a startup and providing an unbelievable amount of transparency is mostly a marketing gimmick today, but long term it could reset the expectations for a new generation of givers.

Today’s Demo Day at the Computer History Museum attracts high net worth individuals, investors and professionals looking to put their charitable giving to work, so while Watsi will probably not take in capital on traditional VC terms I hope they can capture the imagination of some folks in the audience and gain meaningful new donorship.

Wish them luck today, and take a moment to make a donation to Oumar, a 19 month old child whose life is threatened by meningitis and chronic epilepsy. He needs just $1370 to save his life, and 100% of your donation goes directly to his treatment.

It’s been 2 years since @chaseadam17 imagined Watsi.org. Today we’re pitching at @ycombinator‘s Demo Day twitter.com/watsi/status/3…

— Watsi (@watsi) March 26, 2013

In a former life I served as Editor of Seattle 2.0, and one of the most popular pieces of content we produced was the Seattle 2.0 Index – a monthly ranked list of all the local startups. It was a labor of love by Marcelo Calbucci and I was never a part of making it, but I always loved seeing how my favorite companies were doing and discovering new ones. I always thought it would be fun to make something similar for Silicon Valley, but it turns out there are a lot more startups here (I know, I know). To test drive the idea I’m starting with the companies from Y Combinator who haven’t exited, and are still operating.

There are plenty of flaws with rankings like this because traffic and Facebook monthly active users hardly tell the full story of any company and it compares web to mobile, social to enterprise, and on and on. What is valuable is seeing how things change over time. This is the first index, so it doesn’t have the month over month comparison. What it does reveal is that some companies you might not hear about every day in the press are doing really well.

Important: This does not include companies in the current YC batch.

Take a look, let me know what you think, who I missed, or any other feedback. You can read about the methodology at the bottom of this post. I will update this with any corrections and leave an update note.

Methodology

The ranking is based on Alexa traffic rankings first, and Facebook monthly active users second. Right now it doesn’t factor in the iOS or Android rankings because the data is very limited. The MAU numbers are weighted as a percentage of the total MAU across all the companies, multiplied by ten, and subtracted from the Alexa rank. It sounds simplistic, but looking at the list it seems to make sense. I’m open to feedback on mkaing it better.