Graeme Thickins on Tech

Reflections & analysis about innovation, technology, startups, investing, healthcare, and more .... with a focus on Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Lakes. Blogging continuously since 2005.

Tag: venture capital (Page 6 of 14)

Some of the Great People I Met at DEMOfall ’07

October 1, 2007 / / 3 Comments

Well, once again — who’d have guessed? — I made a whole bunch of new contacts at DEMO! 🙂  Once I get home from these events and go through my cards, I’ve made it a tradition to do a post and say-hey to these folks. So, here ya go, friends!

Demofallstagebanner

The names below are just new people I actually got a card from. My apologies to all the others I met but didn’t have time to exchange cards with — that’s why cards are good: they help us remember!  Regardless, it was great meeting all of you!  And I hope to see you again soon in my travels, or at a  future conference. And to all those old friends and acquaintances I ran into again, it was awesome to see you, too!  I just wish I could have had a chance to talk more with all of you… Things are so rushed at these conferences, especially when you’re blogging like mad as well.  [That’s why the coming new DEMO.com community site will be so great!]

Here are those from whom I got a card (in alphabetical order by last name):
-Sean Ammirati, VP Business Development, mSpoke (FeedHub), Pittsburgh, PA
-Matt Biscuiti, VP, The Lippin Group, NYC (for PeopleJam)
-Alistair Campbell, CTO, TruPhone, London, UK
-Scott Chou, Chairman, iForem, Redwood Shores, CA (and Gabriel Venture Partners)
-Allison Clark, Ink Tank PR (for ideablob), Highland Park, IL
-Adam Darowski, UE Designer, BatchBlue Software, Providence, RI
-Chris DeMarche, Director, MotionDSP (FixMyMovie.com), San Mateo, CA
-Mike Garity, VP Marketing & Business Development, DEMO
-Thor Harris, President, Percepture, Lake Hiawatha, NJ
-Jonathan Hirshon, Principal, Horizon PR, Santa Clara, CA
-J. Johnson, Chairman, Global Communications, Houston, TX
-Ami Kassar, Chief Innovation Officer, Advanta (ideablob), Spring House, PA
-Zhenya Kirueshkin-Stepanoff, VP Sales, iForem, Redwood Shores, CA
-Joanne Kisling, PR, Sun Microsystems, Menlo Park, CA
-Colin Kurth, Events Manager, PR Newswire, Chicago, IL
-Rene Lacerte, CEO, CashView, Palo Alto, CA
-Dave Mawhinney, CEO, mSpoke (FeedHub), Pittsburgh, PA
-Macario Namie, Sr Director, Product Marketing, Jasper Wireless, Sunnyvale, CA
-Alex Olson, Cofounder, FilmCrave.com, Kansas City, MO
-Stephen Pieraldi, CEO, iForem, Redwood Shores, CA
-Trish Ridgway, Sr Account Executive, Ignite PR, Belmont, CA
-Michelle Riggen-Ransom, Communications Director, BatchBlue Software, Providence, RI
-Ori Soen, CEO, MuseStorm, Yahud, Israel, and Sunnyvale, CA
-Cathy Sperrazzo, EyeToEye Communications, San Diego, CA
-Oliver Starr, Senior Analyst, Guidewire Group, San Francisco, CA
-Sean Varah, CEO, MotionDSP (FixMyMovie.com), San Mateo, CA
-Rob Vickery, Clarinova, Del Mar, CA
-Amanda Wheatcroft, Principal, Beta PR, San Diego, CA

I’m gonna have to try getting onto BatchBlue’s free site for DEMOfall attendees (see my previous post on that company) so I can reconnect with people — both these and the ones I didn’t get cards from. There are so many conversations I wanted to have, so many great new companies and technologies I wanted to learn more about, so many old contacts I wanted to reconnect with, but (sigh) just not enough time. These two-day events are such a whirlwind!

VCs Who Blog vs. Those Who Don’t

September 24, 2007 / / 5 Comments

Great piece in the Boston Globe yesterday by Scott Kirsner: In Venture Capital, a Growing Rift Over Blogs. It’s the best look I’ve seen so far into why some VCs blog and why others pass. Makes some excellent points about the main advantage for VCs — better deal flow — and the main advantages for entrepreneurs — leveling the playing field, including from a geographic standpoint.  That latter point is one I’ve written about a lot, and a very real issue for founders not lucky enough to be located in one of the VC hotbeds.

I like the way Kirsner characterizes VC blogging as the "new parity in the world of venture capital."

The article quotes one of the best-known VC bloggers out there, Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures in NYC, a guy who’s invested in many Internet and Web 2.0 deals. Here’s an excerpt from the article that quotes Fred:

Venture capitalists who blog say it isn’t just about helping pump up
their firm’s reputation and show how market-savvy they are. Blogging,
writes Wilson via e-mail, is "the best tool for VC investing that I’ve
ever seen, and I’ve been in this business for more than 20 years."

Wilson
says his blog not only helps him meet more start-ups, but it brings him
companies that are "more targeted and more relevant" to the areas he’s
interested in. Wilson also likes it when his readers argue with him or
tell him about companies he might not already know; it’s not unusual
for one of his posts to attract 25 or 30 comments. "You can’t buy that
kind of education," he writes, "and I get it every day for free."

Later in the piece, an opposing viewpoint is put forth:

"My gut says that there’s no correlation between VC blogging and
financial returns," Spark Capital’s (Bijan) Sabet says, noting that blogger
Fred Wilson has done well with his investments – but so has John Doerr
of the Silicon Valley firm Kleiner Perkins, who doesn’t blog but has
put money into Amazon, Google, and Intuit.

The trouble with that characterization, however, is that those latter deals were done long before blogging was popular. Granted, it’s hard to argue that big-kahuna KP needs to blog. But there’s a whole universe of newer, younger VCs out there who are finding it benefits them.

IDG Ventures’ Jeff Bussgang adds this great thought:

…as entrepreneurs increasingly maintain blogs of their own, Bussgang
says, "they want to see that the VCs are their peers and are wrestling
with similar issues and thinking through things."

I wonder how many VC bloggers will be at DEMOfall, starting later today?  I’m looking forward to talking with them.

What do you think about blogging representing "the new parity in venture capital"?  What are your experiences?

 

Stylin’ Times for ‘Tech’ and ‘Venture’

August 26, 2007 / / 3 Comments

Things may seem dull here in the dog days of summer as August fizzles away, but it’s only temporary. Signs are solid for the technology industry and the venture investment sector going forward. First, check out this post by Keith Benjamin, saying he thinks the current credit crunch will actually help the venture industry. And he reiterates his positive feelings in an op-ed piece on VentureBeat, saying technology stocks are “swinging back into favor.”

VMware’s IPO, which priced August 13, has become the latest symbol. It’s even been called “the Google of Virtualization,” as this piece from CNBC states. VMW offered its shares at $29, and they proceeded to rocket to $50 on the first day of trading — thus becoming the most successful IPO since Google. The shares are now trading around $70. For more detail on the VWware story, see this overview on Renaissance Capital’s IPOHome.com. Vmwarechart

Now, fast forward ten days and check out this AP story from August 24th: Tech Revival Predicted in IPO Market. It talks about what more is now coming in the way of tech IPOs, including NetSuite, EqualLogic, 3Par, and our own Minneapolis-based Compellent.

Look for a very upbeat fall if you’re a tech investor or a participant in the technology venture industry.

No Wonder Marc Andreessen Has So Much Time to Blog Lately

July 23, 2007 / / 1 Comment

Marcandreessen
Seems a little deal has been brewing. He just got rich — again. This just in from the Wall Street Journal:

Hewlett-Packard agreed to acquire software maker Opsware for $1.45 billion as the PC giant continues to bulk up its non-hardware offerings. Opsware was co-founded by Marc Andreessen, the young brain behind Internet pioneer Netscape.

Not that he wasn’t already rich. Why does this guy even need to work, anyway? I guess he’s still too young to know any better…. 🙂

Here’s Marc new blog if you haven’t seen it yet. Where he reminds us that the deal was for all cash. Several bloggers, myself included, have been going on and on lately at how great a job he’s been doing with his blogging — really some nice, long, thoughtful pieces, tips about raising VC, etc. (I’ve cited them somewhere on one of my blogs — forget where right now). Suddenly he was being so generous with his time! Sure, he has a great CEO running his popular new firm, Ning (which, by the way, just announced a $40M+ VC infusion).

But I say, hooray! He gets richer, and we all get to benefit more from his great writing — his new career of blogging. Go for it, Marc….

Want to Create Buzz and Raise Bucks?

May 3, 2007 / / 1 Comment

An alert about a great event coming up on June 5 at the Microsoft Campus in Mountain View, CA, called “Launch: Silicon Valley,” co-presented by Garage Technology Ventures and SVASE.

I just became aware of a great event coming up on June 5 at the Microsoft Campus in Mountain View, CA, called Launch: Silicon Valley. And I hope to get there to blog about it. If you want to present, you can still apply by today, May 3rd, by just submitting a two-page executive summary. Launchsvlogo

The event is co-presented by Garage Technology Ventures and SVASE, the Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs. The latter is dedicated exclusively to helping early-stage entrepreneurs across all technology sectors build successful companies. The event’s theme is “Create the Buzz, Raise the Money, and Build your Business.” It’s actually the second of these events, after a very successful first one in November 2006. Some of the other sponsors of the upcoming event are Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Band of Angels, Sand Hill Angels, The Angels’ Forum, and some other heavies, as you’ll see if you click the link above.

So, if you think you have a cool technology or startup concept and want the world to discover you — and can get to Mountain View — this would be a great platform. It gives you the opportunity to meet, network, and showcase your startup to some key movers and shakers in the Valley. If your application is accepted, you’ll get to present directly to an audience of VCs, angel investors, M&A execs, senior corporate biz dev execs, bloggers, press, and potential business partners. The CEOs of the companies voted “most promising” in each of the six sessions at the event will also receive invitations for two to attend the prestigious Ernst & Young “Entrepreneur of the Year” dinner on June 29 at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco.

Again, to apply, submit your two-page executive summary by end of day today, May 3rd. Or email LaunchSV@svase.org for more info.

UPDATE: The submission deadline has been extended to May 13.

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2024 Graeme Thickins on Tech

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑