Venture capitalists are once again pouring money into Internet content. In the second quarter, according to the National Venture Capital Association, VCs invested $464 million in companies developing online content, the highest quarterly total since the height of the dot-com boom in early 2000. Investors see new opportunities in the increase of the number of people viewing video online and the fast growth of the mobile Web. According to Nielsen, 16 percent of cell phone users now routinely access the Internet from phones. Likewise, Apple’s iPhone and other smart phones are spurring demand for cool new digital content.

This time around, the venture capitalists have unfamiliar new partners in the Internet content game: top Hollywood talent agencies. Major agencies such as International Creative Management, Inc. (ICM), William Morris Agency, Inc., Creative Artists Agency, Inc., and United Talent Agency, Inc., see their stars as capable of generating intellectual property that will be valuable on the Weband they want an ownership stake. William Morris has teamed up with Venrock Associates, Accel Partners, and AT&T to develop the Mailroom Fund (named for all those Hollywood moguls that got their start in a mailroom). That fund reportedly has raised $150 million and has already invested in Sometrics, a site that supports ads on social networks. ICM has been working with Qualcomm Inc. to raise funds for its own venture.

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