Last week's big ripple through the twittersphere was caused by Yuri Milner, again (his fund, DST, made a splash with its funding of Facebook and Groupon in 2009). He (personally, not as CEO of DST) and Ron Conway's SV Angel fund, are offerring $150,000 to each of the approximately 40 companies in the most recent Y-combinator group.

Lots of people wrote about it, first in breathless 'this changes everything' tones from Davos, and later in more measured 'there's lots of other fish in the pond' terms as there was more time to think through the consequences. My take is that it shows what can be done with comparatively small amounts of money by investors with the courage of their convictions. There will likely be more companies which can get their FMCA (Fast Moving Consumer App) out to market without requiring late stage or even early stage funds. Having achieved entry to Y Combinator, the startups have its contacts, its support network, to which this money adds heft. Other incubators have a model with which to approach potential funding sources.

References
The story on Techcrunch
Roger Ehrenberg (managing partner, IA Ventures) blog
Brandon Watson (Microsoft, ex Soros Private Equity) comments
Digital Sky Technologies background
About YC
Personal interviews with YC people