Relations between corporate acquirers and venture capitalists and their portfolio companies is a shifting landscape blending competition and aligned interests. They both may want a deal to occur but the price at which it does happen is usually a matter of negotiation.

This is what may have happened in recent months between Google and Riya. Rumors emerged that Google was in talks to acquire Riya, a facial recognition technology startup. The speculation cooled down and Riya then raised a $15 million second round of funding in January from Bay Partners, Leapfrog Ventures and BlueRun Ventures. Last month, Google said it was acquiring Riya's closest competitor, Neven Vision, and apply its technology to photo organization tool, Picasa.

Now, I don't know if Riya CEO Munjal Shah will be able to reveal what really went on between Riya and Google. He wrote in his blog that he is limited in what he can say by a non-disclosure agreement. However, even if he can't talk specifics, the lessons learned will be worth hearing. Shah will be an event panelist on the VC-Corporate faceoff at 3:45 p.m. on October 5th at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View.

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