But don’t get too excited — it’s just another late-stage deal. Why are we not surprised? Gearworks, as reported by the Pioneer Press, just closed on yet another $21 million in VC, of which our local Split Rock Partners contributed $7.5 million. Pilesofcash The partner on the deal is, of course, Michael Gorman. Yes, that’s a lot of money in a single round for a MN tech firm. And it now means that Gearworks has raised — are you ready? — a total of $59 million since its founding back in 1999. Of course, they blew threw a lot of that cash in a model since adandoned, but they seem to be onto a real market now for location-based services. Gearworkslogo It must be a good market, because for this much money to be invested, and now the conservative late-stage guys coming in, there has to be a big payback seen just over the horizon. [IPO?] Well, less so of a payback for the late-stage money, I guess…

But all this big-bucks stuff has little meaning to people in the early-stage investment world, where I know most of us live. For a strange juxtaposition to the above news, check out this video of the latest panel that Guy Kawasaki moderated. It’s amazing how companies today can get launched with so little capital — at least when the Internet is central to what they do. Many of ’em all but thumb their noses at VCs — I hear it all the time. One guy I heard it from recently was Gabe Rivera, founder of Techmeme, chatting with him last month at CES/Bloghaus. What some of these guys are able to do, with such minimal startup funding, is amazing. More power to ’em!