Can a small venture capital firm make a difference?

Marc Andreessen, who helped start Netscape, and long-time partner Ben Horowitz have launched a $300 million VC fund to invest in tech companies. Compared to the billion dollar arsenals of other venture capital firms, it's an extremely small sum to make a dent in the market, and it may be too small for Andreessen to make any meaningful investments.

But Andreessen's philosophy is off-beat and it just may work. He was an early investor in Twitter, which initially raised just a few million dollars, according to The New York Times. He has also put capital into several other early-stage companies, all at a time when they probably needed only modest sums to get off the ground.