The job of venture capitalists is changing. To understand how, consider Drew Lanza's summer: In addition to scouting for start-up companies to invest in, like most venture capitalists, Mr. Lanza suddenly found himself operating as a private-equity player and industry deal maker.
At the center of Mr. Lanza's activity was a small company called Cortina Systems Inc., a start-up chip maker in Sunnyvale, Calif., in which he invested $3.7 million in 2001. At the time, Mr. Lanza, a venture capitalist at Morgenthaler Ventures, of Menlo Park, Calif., believed the investment would follow the conventional venture-capital route -- that is, he ...
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