Portfolio.com interviewed 10 venture capitalists at a range of firms both small and large, from East coast to West. Here are highlights from those interviews, which focus on where they see the venture industry going in the future.

Tim Draper

Tim Draper is founder and managing director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, a Silicon Valley firm that has funded more than 500 companies. It has offices on Sand Hill Road, in the heart of Silicon Valley’s venture community, and in Shanghai and Bangalore.

VC cred: Launched the DFJ Network, a network of early-stage venture capital funds in 30 cities around the globe. Successful companies he’s backed include Skype, Hotmail, Overture.com, and Baidu.

The next big thing: “I love the Tesla and the Reva (electric cars), I like BrightSource (solar-thermal technology), I like SocialText (social network for the enterprise), I like Wigix (fun eBay), and I like anything that takes a big industry in a new direction.”

Takeaways: Unlike many other venture capitalists, Draper sees his industry growing, nationally and internationally, in five years.

“I think the industry has shrunk, but it will grow in people and in money globally over the next 5 years. I believe it will consolidate around fewer top brands.” And he expects his firm to be on top. “I think there will be successful entrepreneurs coming from all over the world, and that will encourage investment, and venture capital will be everywhere. I also believe those VCs with the best global networks will be the most successful investors through this acceleration.

“I expect that the Silicon Valley will continue to lead the world for years to come in entrepreneurship and venture capital culturally,” he says. “Other pockets will grow faster, however.” Among those cities with a growing VC presence: “Beijing, Shanghai, Bangalore, Moscow, Sao Paolo, Houston, New York, Pittsburgh, Cambridge, Istanbul, Alberta, Ho Chi Minh City.”

He also thinks the opportunities for venture capital backed companies to cash out will shift from the traditional initial public offering in U.S. markets. “I think IPOs in the U.S. are hamstrung by Sarbanes-Oxley. I expect a few more to come, but most liquidity will come from IPOs in other countries (that understand that they are competing for the great businesses of the world), mergers and acquisitions, and XPO’s from Xchange, the new stock market for private companies.”

And he’s optimistic about the companies venture capitalists are investing in right now. “The best companies often come out of difficult environments, and they create memes throughout that create great lasting businesses,” he says. “They are cheaper, more creative, and more flexible than equivalent companies started in boom years when cash is plentiful,” he says.

Dixon Doll

Dixon Doll is co-founder and general partner at DCM, a Silicon Valley firm with $1.5 billion under management.

VC cred: Past chairman of the National Venture Capital Association. His Sand Hill Road firm has invested in technology companies such as About.com, ClearWire, and Abound Solar.

The next big thing: Some of the industries his firm is honing in on include cleantech, cloud computing, and the next generation of mobile communications.

Takeaways: Doll sees the industry, which had its birth in Silicon Valley and has been dominated by firms there, will be much more global. “Just extend that model to the globe,” Doll says, pointing specifically to China and India. “If you look at the Chinese market, it’s kind of roughly where the U.S. market was in the early to mid-'80s. You can just project outward that the Chinese market is going to grow significantly over the next five years.”

Plus, the methods of taking companies public or merging them with larger partners will be more of an international game, instead of one dominated by IPOs on the Nasdaq or NYSE. “I think that there are going to be a lot more international IPOs of venture-backed companies,” he says. He points to emerging stock markets in the Pacific Rim—in China, Singapore, Japan, and Taiwan.

He also sees more multinational companies, which have been hoarding cash, wading into international acquisitions of venture-backed companies.

“You’ve got these big multinationals that are thinking very globally, and they’re building up big cash stashes, and they’ll get more aggressive as economies emerge from the current crisis,” Doll says, pointing out that IBM had $13 billion in cash at the end of the year, and Google is sitting on somewhere in the neighborhood of $16 billion.

One thing he does see is plenty of companies that will be worthy of venture capital investing. “We don’t see any evidence at all that innovation is slowing down or coming to the end of its existence. There’s just a ton of evidence that innovation is alive and well,” he says.

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