A week or so ago on Techcrunch I came across this post:
It got me thinking to another variation of a hybrid VC model that could be used. A VC could conceivably invest in “good scouts� who could scour the trenches for really promising upstart technologies. A VC could then get in early enough to buyout the technology at a great price and swap out the team with a pre-assembled all-star team.
This all-star team and product would then be owned entirely by the VC firm (or with some equity split) could then see the company through to a major buyout. The key would be to identify technologies that are a good fit within certain conglomerates, say a technology likely be snapped up by a Google or Microsoft.