Proof that not all Website startups are a thing of the past, thefacebook has really gotten the attention of college students from all over the US.

It is not easy capturing the attention of Jim Breyer, one of Silicon Valley’s leading venture capitalists. But Mark Zuckerberg, a 21-year-old Harvard student, managed to do it with a Web site that has attracted 2.8 million registered users on more than 800 campuses since it began in February 2004.

Mr. Breyer was so taken with Mr. Zuckerberg’s company, thefacebook.com, which creates online interactive college-student networks, that his firm, Accel Partners, plans to announce a $13 million investment in the start-up today.

“It is a business that has seen tremendous underlying, organic growth and the team itself is intellectually honest and breathtakingly brilliant in terms of understanding the college student experience,” Mr. Breyer said.

Five years after the Internet bubble burst, a new generation of Web start-ups is quietly attracting investment capital. Thefacebook.com typifies the breed: a company that is built on substance rather than high expectations. While $13 million might seem paltry next to the free-flowing sums of the late 1990’s, Mr. Breyer said it was a “significant investment” from Accel’s new $400 million fund.

“The first model was to raise a lot of venture money early on, even before we understood the consumer experience and knew the risks,” Mr. Breyer said. Today, by contrast, his firm backs companies “like thefacebook, which have built a deep relationship again and again with the customer.” Social sites, as well as those involving music and video, are among those that are particularly attractive right now, he said. [Read the rest]