According to a not-so-recent academic paper, titled "Whom You Know Matters: Venture Capital Networks and Investment Performance," by Yael Hochberg, Alexander Ljungqvist, and Yang Lu suggests that, more often than not, venture investors who boast the biggest and finest networks generally yield superlative returns.

The authors, who analyzed historic venture returns, arrived at the conclusion that "the better-networked VC firms experience significantly better fund performance," in terms of the number companies in their portfolios exiting by way of an IPO or acquisition.

It is quite obvious that the parallel drawn between the magnitude of a venture firm's network and the results it produces, has to do a lot with improved access to talent, deal flow, advisers, likely customers, and potential exits.

Applying the conclusions of the aforesaid research paper, Vijay Dondeti - a bioinformatics graduate student - studied nearly 2,700 investors who contributed to more than 3,300 startup funding rounds between 2006 and 2008, and concluded that to be ranked high, venture capitalists "need to co-invest often with others that also co-invest often."

According to Dondeti, the top ten venture investors having the best networks include the following in sequential order - Draper Fisher Jurvetson; Sequoia Capital; Accel Partners; Intel Capital; First Round Capital; Dag Ventures; New Enterprise Associates; Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers; Benchmark Capital; and Ron Conway.