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Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado

February 27, 2007

The brand spanking new Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado was announced yesterday. This is a fantastic organization that allows entrepreneurs to set up their philanthropic programs for their companies while they are still in their formative stages. Young businesses can donate a stake in their success to the Foundation, and if they have a successful exit they can recommend which charities the money goes to. You can read all about it on Brad Feld’s blog.

I’ve already taken Brad up on his invitation to participate. We’ll be talking soon about how TechStars can donate a portion of its overall equity to the Foundation. This is neat because, in effect, it will create automatic initial participation by each of the TechStars portfolio companies each year. One of the big goals of TechStars is to feed our overall ecosystem of which the community itself is a huge part. I’d encourage you to get involved as well - just contact Brad.

Congratulations and thank you to Me.dium, Collective Intellect, Newsgator, Rally Software, Tendril, Mobius, Foundry Group, Cooley Godward Kronish, Hogan and Hartson, Boulder Ventures, Sequel Venture Partners, and everyone else involved in this effort.

Written by David Cohen · Filed Under Blog, Startups |  

Venture Capital Outlook 2007

February 27, 2007

The MIT Club of Colorado is presenting an MIT Enterprise Forum on “Venture Capital Outlook for 2007″ in Boulder on Wednesday night (the 28th). It’s being held at CU’s ATLAS building. Jim Pollock, who is organizing the event, gave me the following information.

The Forum will start with a 40 minute digital presentation from MIT/Cambridge with a panel of Boston VCs discussing the trends that ended 2006 and what they forsee for 2007. How high is the bar for investment? What kind of deals are being looked at? What’s hot and not?

This will be followed immediately with a live panel of Colorado VCs ready to answer your questions and compare the scenes in Boston and the Front Range. Fresh from the Venture Capital in the Rockies conference the previous week, you’ll get to ask questions of and hear from:

- Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson, Mobius Venture Capital
- Catharine Merigold, Vista Ventures
- Kyle Lefkoff, Boulder Ventures
- Chris Scoggins, Sequel Venture Partners

Three of these firms are JUST finishing raising brand new funds, so this is a great time to hear their plans.

Here are the details:

Date: Weds Feb 28
Time: 5:30-7:30pm doors open at 5pm for networking
Location:
The Main Auditorium, ATLAS Building
CU Boulder Campus
18th Street and Euclid
Boulder, CO 80302 (parking within a block)

Cost
- $25 General Admission
- $15 MIT Alumni Club & Ivy League Club Members (and their guests)
- $20 MIT Graduates & CTEK, CIK, CSIA, DTP, TiE, YEO (and their guests)
- $10 (cheap) for CU/DU/CSU MBA or Law students

Registration is required.

If you can’t attend for some reason, you’re in luck. I’ve been invited to podcast the event, so look for it on this blog within a few days of the event.

Written by David Cohen · Filed Under Blog, Startups | 2 Comments 

VCIR…And Bio Too!

February 25, 2007

Guest post by Adam Rubenstein

What an honor to be pinged by Dave Cohen to guest post here on ColoradoStartups with my perspective on the bio side of Venture Capital in the Rockies.

Quickly, I maintain a pseudo-equivalent blog to ColoradoStartups, Colorado
Life Science Deal Flow where the focus is on the start-up bio-scape in Colorado, at OnBioVC I observe the broader trends in life science investing, and as the
co-founder of the Fitzsimons BioBusiness Incubator it empowers me with an insight into the nuts and bolts of the local bio-entrepreneurial community.

Without a doubt the CO life science industry took a significant leap forward this year. The growth of the region is evidenced not only by the number of presenters at this year’s conference but also in the log growth in the number of applicant companies.

To put life science investing in perspective relative to the funding needs and time to market cycles of many IT plays consider this…it takes approximately (source dependent) ten years and $750 million to $1 billion dollars to get a drug to market. Add to these staggering metrics an average of 7-years of remaining patent life post market, along with the need to have multiple developmental programs concurrently progressing to aid in risk mitigation and the need for pharma to produce blockbuster (>$1B) drugs may become a bit more clear.

The presenting companies at VCIR are generally early in their cycle, where the products presented may fall anywhere between pre-clinical development to Phase I or II (of III or sometimes IV) stages of human clinical trials; in other words, years away from commercialization yet increasing their value each day with each piece of positive data. Consider the recent acquisition of Westminster, CO-based Myogen by Gilead for $2.5 billion last October for a product that is still a minimum of six-months away from receiving FDA approval, or the acquisition of Boulder, CO-based Sirna Therapeutics by Merck for $1.1 billion last November for a product that is a minimum of three to five-years away from approval!

Now to the VCIR presenters…

GlobeImmune – (Louisville, CO) Has developed a platform technology called
Tarmogens® (or Targeted Molecular Immunogens) and is focused on the treatment of chronic hepatitis C and certain cancers mediated by an oncogene called Ras, such as colorectal, non-small cell lung carcinoma, pancreas and ovarian cancers. The technology has also been licensed to MycoLogics who is focused upon the treatment and prevention of fungal diseases such as coccidioidomycosis, aspergillosis, cryptococcosis, candidiasis and leishmaniasis.

Apoplogic Pharmaceuticals - (Aurora, CO) The second “p” is silent. The company was founded by Richard Duke, Ph.D., who previously co-founded Ceres Pharmaceuticals and GlobeImmune. The company is focused upon products that target apoptotic (programmed cell death) pathways found in cancers, leukemia’s and lymphomas.

ARCA Discovery – (Denver, CO) Founded by Michael Bristow, M.D., Ph.D. who had previously founded Myogen and the Cardiovascular Institute at the University Colorado Health Science Center. ARCA is developing and commercializing genetically-targeted therapies for heart failure and other cardiovascular diseases. The lead product is bucindolol® a beta-blocker and vasodilator for heart failure and other indications.

BaroFold – (Boulder, CO) Is poised to transform the way pharma manufactures
recombinant proteins. A patented technology employs the use of hydrostatic pressure to disaggregate and refold proteins into their proper “active” conformations. BaroFold is able to deliver a more pure (safer) product at higher concentrations and thus higher yields saving manufacturing time and reducing costs. The process has been successfully tested in greater that 200 proteins to date.

Taligen Therapeutics – (Aurora, CO) Is focused upon novel inhibitors of the alternative complement pathway and anti-factor B antibodies in particular. The lead indications for these therapeutics, for the treatment of inflammation, are asthma and age-related macular degeneration. An investigational new drug application is expected to be filed with the food and drug administration in 2007.

LigoCyte – (Bozeman, MT) Has two programs focusing upon vaccines and therapeutic monoclonal antibodies. Indications for their vax program include norovirus, anthrax, and influenza. On the infectious disease side include chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.

The remaining presenting companies fall into a non-therapeutic bucket, where they range from medical devices, bio-informatics and discovery tools-based companies.

Abla-Tx (Boulder, CO) has developed a software algorithm to help guide
minimally invasive surgical techniques (e.g. RF, microwave and, high energy ultrasound energies) to fully ablate the treatment zone of inoperable tumors.

High Throughput Genomics (Tucson, AZ) is developing molecular biology-based tools to improve and accelerate the drug discovery process. Their Nuclease Protection Assay allows for the accurate identification of low and moderately expressed genes that undergo the slightest changes to yield disease
states.

Veran Medical Technologies (Nashville, TN) AccuSample™ Biopsy System and the IG4™ 4-Dimensional Navigation System address the need for improvement in Minimally Invasive Delivery Technologies. Veran systems aid the planning, precision delivery, and monitoring of thermal energy tissue
coagulation while reducing adverse side effects of nephrotoxic contrast agents and hazardous radiation levels, complication rates, repeat procedures, efficiency, and cost of healthcare. Crosstrees Medical is developing devices and tools for the treatment of vertebral body compression fractures in the spine.

Q Therapeutics is developing cell-based therapies using naturally-occurring glial progenitor cells to treat demyelinating CNS diseases.

The Colorado life science industry is growing by leaps and bounds. With the development of the new medical campus at Fitzsimons and the 160-acre Colorado Bioscience Park @ Fitzsimons scheduled to break ground this spring I would not be surprised to see VCIR have to add a day to accommodate all of the emerging bio and IT companies.

I am happy to delve into more detail on any of these companies, just shoot me an email.

And thanks Dave, looking forward to VCIR 2008!

Written by David Cohen · Filed Under Blog, Startups |  

VCIR Presenting Companies

February 23, 2007

VCIR had 33 presenting companies in three tracks this year. 22 were IT related, and 11 were life sciences. Unfortunately, I only got to see about a third of them.

Envysion - Broadband video surveillance. This targets food service, hotel and retail businesses who want to use the Internet to manage surveillance. They’ve landed customers such as IHOP, Qdoba, Shell Oil, Papa John’s, and Dominos. They compete with startups such as RemoteReality, CoVi, iControl, and 3VR. They’re getting ready to launch their subscription SaaS product. They’re up to about 15 employees and have 6.5M in funding. It’s a matter of time before surveillance turns into a game of cheap cameras coupled with web based software and storage. I’m sure these companies don’t really want to manage all that infrastructure. To me SaaS makes perfect sense here in the long run.

Feed Tribes (covered previously) is making a huge bet - The future of payments will be the mobile phone. The challenge here is distribution - can they do enough deals with POS vendors and establish a presence with merchants? The argument to the merchant is certainly compelling - they pay $0.19 per transaction instead of the traditional base + percentage model. They’ve chosen the path of least resistance and are using SMS for both authentication and opt-in promotion. According to experts, this is very secure. And FEED has a very strong team with great industry experience. And they’re right, I don’t leave home without the phone.

I remember being impressed with Lijit founder Stan James from the day I met him (at BarCamp, I think). Stan had been thinking a great deal about trusted sources on the Internet, and this had turned into a browser plug in where users could vote up or down on various web sites, feeding information about the credibility of sites to each users personal network. I was an early beta tester when it was still OutFoxed, and have been talking about Lijit for a while on this blog. The early focus was on re-ordering Google search results based on user feedback and recommendations. Post-investment, Lijit seems to have changed direction for the better. They’re now focused on vertical search of your personal network and expert identification. For example, you can search my personal network from my blog (in the right column) and you can do the same with the TechStars mentors. The idea is that there are cases where you’d trust these networks and get more efficiency from your search over the general population which is what Google returns. Long term, Lijit wants to be in a position to identify and control search for networks of experts so they can inject highly targeted ad placements.

I’ve come across LogRhythm CEO Andy Grolnick on the tennis court a few times, so it was nice to see him in this “other” setting. LogRhythm is providing enterprise class log management and analysis software in order to help companies deal with regulations like SOX, PCI, HIPAA, and FISMA, or just to enhance their own security and audit capabilities. Early customers include Wild Oats, PetCO, and Amtrak. LogLogic has a strong lead in this category and it’s unclear to me what LogRhythm’s real differentiators are. Splunk also seems to have a nice grass roots following. I’m interested to see if LogRhythm can raise a substantial venture round this year, or if it will just not be sexy and different enough.

Me.dium has been getting tons of buzz lately (both before and after their recent DEMO appearance). It’s just so different, and as Kimbal likes to say “Being around people (on the web) will change everything.” Me.dium is at a distinct disadvantage in 15 minute pitch formats, because their idea is just so radical and hard to grasp. It took me a while to get it. I’m not a huge fan of the “visual map” as I think it adds confusion. I’d rather see an option to get some kind of a text listing sorted either by relevance or simply by what my friends are doing. I think you could also convey more information this way. This will be part of the trick - how to effectively map the intention of seeing the crowds to the UI. I think the company should also experiment with an iFrame based approach to let people get a sense of Me.dium right away without having to install the plug in. Either way, Me.dium is one to watch. I like the mission, and given the team and backers, I expect the execution/UI to improve over time.

Right now, I think that NewsGator is my favorite Colorado company (would have loved to have been an angel investor on this deal). They make my life easier every single day - the sign of a great company. I’m a huge consumer of RSS, and haven’t read a newspaper in over a year. I get my information from RSS and my social network. I use Go on my BlackBerry, NetNewsWire on my laptop, and once in a while I’ll use the online version. I can’t imagine using an RSS reader that wasn’t synchronized perfectly like NewsGator does it. The business for NewsGator, of course, is in the enterprise. So far, they haven’t forgotten the consumers like me and I feel fortunate that’s the case.

The basic idea of OpenLogic is to make it easier and safer to adopt open source. They’ve certified and aggregated over 200 open source projects and have landed some nice customers including AIG, Bank of America, General Motors and Lockheed Martin. When open source projects are versioned, OpenLogic takes the time to figure out if they can certify the new release, and what dependencies need to be considered, etc. Makes me think they’d be a natural early partner for Solidware, whose products can automatically identify areas of risk in code, including the change in risk distribution over time.

Oxlo is one company I had heard quite a bit about, but wasn’t exactly sure what it was they did. Basically, they’ve build a web-based messaging switch that provides a way for extended business partners to inter-connect their processes and workflows. They’re focused on automotive as an initial vertical and count many of the major auto dealers as customers. I love the idea in general - find industries still using older communications infrastructure, get in between disparate systems, handle and monitor message flow, then provide business analytics for your customers to give them new insights into their business that they can’t easily get on their own. If I had to guess (based on not much more than the obviously auto-centric logo and the fact that large industries like vertical focus), I’d say the company may end up with different brands in each vertical, simply reusing the technology and infrastructure in each market. I really like the idea (and execution thus far) of this business.

Rally Software Development says it’s the SalesForce.com of agile software development. Agile is a huge and growing trend in the software industry (even my 13 year old public safety company has recently adopted it). I’ve used web based development toolsets in the past (feature/project/bug tracking, test tracking, etc), and they really work great for distributed teams. With the off-shoring movement, this is even more important today. Incidentally, at one point CEO Tim Miller was talking about how Rally applies to open source. He said - “80% of CIO’s ‘admit’ to using open source.” I’m sure Tim meant nothing negative by that, I just had to laugh out loud though.

Skyetek is an RFID software and hardware company who wants to unlock RFID’s “real” potential by making it an embedded product feature that “provides internet connectivity, customer visibility, and personalization”. The pitch started off with CEO Rob Balgley putting “supply chain management” up on the overhead, then crossing it out - essentially informing the audience that this is not just another RFID tracking play. The company is “tagnostic” in that they don’t manufacture or dictate with tags are used, but supply software and universal readers that are 2 times smaller and two times cheaper than the closest rivals. Not much to say here, except, um, is WalMart a customer? ;-)

Thought Equity Motion is cool. Having no idea what they did and never having heard of them, I was fortunate that somebody dragged me in there and told me I’d like it (I’d about had it by then). Basically, these guys aggregate licensed video content and then make it highly searchable so that producers can view it as a huge library of high quality stock video footage. They have licensing deals in place with Sony Pictures, National Geographic, HBO, the NCAA, etc. I had heard of the competitors in this space such as Getty, and didn’t even know there was a major player here in our back yard. In addition to content deals, the company hopes to grow via acquisition and by enticing producers to create the content that they see demand for in near-real time. Play around with the video search engine - it’s pretty nifty.

Umbria is a new-media consumer market research firm. They want to try to give you tomorrows news today, by listening to the blogosphere and applying natural language processing techniques to try to assess the age, gender, and sentiment of the speaker. I’m very skeptical that this can work well in an automated fashion for a vast majority of cases. CEO Janet Eden-Harris gave the example of a teenager saying something like “Umbria is so cool. Not.” We’ll have to give them the benefit of the doubt. I suppose on the high end where Umbria plays (typical customers are Verizon, Citibank, Mattel, Hallmark, etc) this sort of insight into not just general sentiment but rather into how specific types of people are reacting to your brands is important. I think that for SMBs, who could probably never afford this sort of analytics based approach - the larger problem is that they simply have no idea that people are talking about them on blogs, forums, or social networks at all. Umbria is not trying to solve that particular problem, and is a much higher-end solution. There’s a big market for this, but I expect it to just get more and more crowded. I know nothing about it, and have no idea if it’s true, but I do hear stories of internal rumors of trouble and management rifts within Umbria. Hard to imagine with only 26 employees, huh?

I didn’t get to see about 10 of the other IT presentations, but I was told they were all excellent and interesting. There has been some nice national reaction to the VCIR conference, which is nice to hear.

I previously promised I’d cover a few of the life sciences companies that I got a glimpse of. Instead, I’ve asked Adam Rubenstein (who writes the Colorado Life Science Dealflow and OnBioVC blogs) to guest post on ColoradoStartups with his thoughts on the life sciences companies from VCIR. That will save me from sounding any more like a dork than I already do, as I know almost nothing about this world. I’m expecting that from Adam later tonight, and will post it as soon as I receive it.

Written by David Cohen · Filed Under Blog, Startups | 1 Comment 

VC in the Rockies - My takeaways

February 22, 2007

The VC in the Rockies conference was awesome, even with a few technical glitches. I will follow this post with my take on the companies that I saw pitch, but I figured I’d jot down some of the high level insights I took away from the conference first.

I really enjoyed Greg Maffei’s opening keynote. He talked about six trends to watch, which were:

  • The changing consumer landscape. More segmented, growth in hispanic consumer segment, the aging of the US population - big opportunity to market to older people compared to the past.
  • International growth. Europeans getting online (they’re ahead on mobile phones, but not on broadband in the home, etc). Other emerging worldwide markets.
  • The rise of video. Video driven e-commerce - consumers want as many details as possible about what they’re busying - video is a great way to extend e-commece, for example.
  • The proliferation of mobile devices. In Japan, 6% of all QVC orders are placed via a mobile device, and the average sales price from a mobile device is higher than from the web. This trend will come here to the US soon. I thought Greg’s discussion on placeshifting vs timeshifting was very interesting - he posed the question of whether or not people will pay for content delivered to specialized devices or if they’ll simply placeshift the content they already pay for at home onto their mobile device ala SlingBox.
  • Digital communities continue to grow. The big tent of MySpace may not last forever - communities localized around special interests, geography, or demographics are on the rise. It’s inevitable that these communities will begin to drive major e-commerce. We see good examples of specialized digital communities here in Colorado such as YourRunning.com, YourCycling.com, and Thoos.
  • Vertical search. The Google model of horizontal search is great, but specialized vertical search is on the rise. Zillow is a great example - searching for houses or “zillowing” your date to see what his home is worth. A good Colorado example is Lijit, which seems to have shifted its focus from ratings driven search to networks of trust and expert identification - I’ll talk more about that in a follow up post on VCIR.

I also enjoyed listening to Mark Hessen who is the President of the NVCA. His comments during the Press Roundtable event were insightful, but I took even more away from his talk during lunch yesterday. I was interested to hear how venture capital represents 0.2% of all investment in the US, but that 16% of all jobs are created by companies who have had venture funding. That’s a pretty amazing track record for an industry of only a few thousand people. I was also interested to get Mark’s take on the Colorado Venture Capital Associations (CVCA) transformation into the Rocky Mountain Venture Capital Association (RMVCA). Mark was very supportive of the move, saying that venture capitalists from outside the region are much more likely to attend an annual conference where they can see the best venture-ready companies from the entire region rather than just one state. Mark also talked at length about the fact that the Rocky Mountain region is a rising national presence for the venture industry in general, and echoed the mantra of improved education and an early and consistent focus on entrepreneurialism in our schools. I have to agree - I think the business school at CU is very entrepreneurial, but computer science students just don’t seem to get exposed to it enough. I don’t think it’s a matter of “teaching” entrepreneurship as much as it is simply exposing all students to basic business concepts and getting some cross-pollination with the geeks and the MBAs, for example. I also thought Mark’s thoughts on the importance of angel investors and their rise in professionalism was encouraging. Mark said that the trend nationwide is that angels and VCs are working more and more closely together - and that is a very good thing.

I thought that the crop of companies at VCIR was pretty impressive. Colorado is cranking out some interesting growing companies with a great deal of potential. I had previously met many of these companies, so I went out of my way to look at some companies outside of my comfort zone (software/web) just to get a better sense of the kinds of stuff going on in the state. All in all, I walked away pretty impressed with most of the companies I saw. Many of them are led by entrepreneurs who have had one or two previous experiences. It’s nice to see the ecosystem feeding off of its own previous success (and failure) - it makes a big difference that people want to live here even after a success, and are likely to contribute their efforts over and over again.

Above all, my biggest takeaway was simply the fact that I met a great number of amazing people. Sure, it was cool to network with these very talented VCs from Colorado, Silicon Valley, Seattle, and elsewhere. But it was fantastic to meet many of the great entrepreneurs in the area that I had not met in person before, as well as the people supporting and encouraging them. It was said several times at VCIR that the VCs simply go where the entrepreneurs are. Luckily for all of us, entrepreneurs and therefore the ecosystem that develops around them, are alive and well in Colorado.

Written by David Cohen · Filed Under Blog, Startups | 1 Comment 

EntrepreneurshipWeek USA is next week

February 22, 2007

Next week is EntrepreneurshipWeek USA, and there are several great events going on as a result. Here are just a few.

Written by David Cohen · Filed Under Blog, Startups | 2 Comments 

Bachelor Gulch Ritz Carlton - WTF?

February 20, 2007

Venture Capital in the Rockies is going on at the Ritz Carlton at Bachelor Gulch. This hotel is as nice as it gets. This conference is as nice as it gets, and very well organized.

But you can’t get WIFI there to save your life. I see WIFI, but it doesn’t connect. Others had this problem too.

Attendees from last years conference complained the same problem existed last year. There are codes to enter, etc, but that assumes you can even get to some kind of landing page to key it in to.

I’m told it’s easier if you’re staying there and get access from your room (this is bullshit, of course).

It’s embarassing. The VC industry is hosting this conference and showing off all these high tech companies, but nobody from the press (or random bloggers like me) can get a connection. I had to go find a coffee shop.

I complained. Let’s see if it gets any better tomorrow. Maybe they can put in a real system next year. Hell, I’ll even pay the $30/day they’ll want to charge. ;-)

Written by David Cohen · Filed Under Blog, Startups | 2 Comments 

VCIR - Press Roundtable

February 20, 2007

I’m up at VCIR in Beaver Creek this week. Before the conference started (at 1pm today) the NVCA organized a “press roundtable” where several Colorado venture capitalists, out of state VCs, and the press talked about the venture capital market in Colorado.

Here’s the 90 minute unedited podcast, and show notes follow. If you want this and all future podcasts, just subscribe.

Present were (at least):

There were a couple of other people in the room that I didn’t get the chance to meet personally or may have forgotten to list - oops.

Here are the questions/topics discussed, in case you want to jump around.

5:00 - What does Colorado have to offer from a venture capital perspective?
8:45 - Where do Colorado companies get “serious capital”? Do they tend to need to move to get access to that kind of capital?
10:00 - Good discussion of why Colorado is a great tech startup region.
11:25 - Out of staters are surprised by the depth of technology present here in certain segments.
12:30 - Out of state VCs trust Colorado VCs to “look after the shop” and it may be attractive for B rounds.
14:05 - What are the staple industries that are being invested here, and what are the ones which may be emerging?
18:45 - Surprising number of life science companies being funded (30+ in Colorado last year)
20:30 - Less “follow the leader” in Colorado than elsewhere.
21:30 - Are VCs here stringent in terms of business plans, revenue models, etc?
24:45 - Renewable energy, CleanTech discussion.
27:45 - What role can the government play in promoting energy and CleanTech?
29:50 - How strong is the local market for venture debt?
31:45 - Consumer products (natural foods, beverage, restaurant chains, LOHAS, etc).
36:00 - How does globalization affect Colorado?
39:55 - VC industry in general is much smaller than it was a few years ago.
40:40 - Where is the money going if it’s not going into VC funds?
44:40 - Does every VC firm in Colorado see every funded deal here?
47:25 - How have Colorado VCs done in comparison to the rest of the country?
50:45 - Has your mindset changes regarding exits and how you think about them lately? IPOs, strategic acquisitions, etc?
56:10 - Is there an appetite for foreign IPOs (e.g. AIM)?
58:00 - Is it rhetoric that companies may go public overseas because of Sarbanes-Oxley?
59:20 - Should startups/small companies have different Sarbanes-Oxley rules?
1:03:50 - Discussion of the history of the accounting industry - Books that Brad references (and couldn’t recall) are here and here.
1:04:30 How generous are you all feeling with your checkbooks in 2007?
1:06:35 (2 minute drop in audio due to technical problem)
1:07:20 The best things the state of Colorado can do for entrepreneurs? Brad and John say focus on education.
1:10:30 What few things would you like to see if Ritter could make one or two key moves?
1:11:30 The most underestimated thing about Colorado is simply that people want to live here.
1:14:15 What Cleantech technologies look most interesting?
1:15:30 Thoughts of VCs on recent Union bill veto by Ritter.
1:17:00 What keeps VCs up at night these days?
1:20:30 Energy/areospace collaboration with government?
1:23:45 Are Colorado Springs and Fort Collins second fiddle to Denver/Boulder/CU?

I did no editing on this - sorry if it’s a bit raw. If you have questions about what you hear, please comment and hopefully some of the participants will respond.

Written by David Cohen · Filed Under Blog, Startups | 1 Comment 

LivePitch comes to Boulder on March 2

February 20, 2007

As part of EntrepreneurshipWeek USA, TechStars and FundingUniverse.com are presenting LivePitch in Boulder on March 2nd. Thanks to the kind folks at CU, the event will take place in the beautiful new Wolf Law Building from 9:00am to 10:30am.

The purpose of EntrepreneurshipWeek USA is to promote the importance of being entrepreneurial throughout the country. During The Week, events like this are happening all over the country.

Whether you’re an investor, a company who wants to pitch, a service provider, a student, or are just interested in the event, we hope you’ll register to attend. There is no charge, but advance registration is required. If your company would like to pitch there, please register your interest or contact me directly.

Attendees in the audience will receive $100 of play money that they will use to “invest” in their favorite company pitch. Both the audience favorite and the investor favorite will receive prizes from sponsors like HRO and CTEK for their efforts. The big picture is that this is a great networking opportunity for investors, service providers, and entrepreneurs. If you’d like to be a sponsor and donate prizes, please let me know.

Although TechStars is helping to put on the LivePitch event, these pitches will not be considered “applications” for this summer. This is completely independent of that process. If you want to apply to TechStars, you can do so until March 31.

I hope to see you at the LivePitch event.

Written by David Cohen · Filed Under Blog, Startups |  

vBoD = dead, BoB = alive

February 19, 2007

We announced the virtual board of directors thing a few months back. We had very few takers (like, two) who called in with a question. So, being customer centric, we now pronounce it dead. You can get better advice on AskTheVC.com anyway, I suppose. I just thought it would be neat to give it an audio twist.

The big or bullshit series is still very much alive, even if Brad has been so busy traveling that he hasn’t had a chance to follow up with his take on the first post about widgets. I’ve told him no pressure, so thanks for being patient with him on this. (subtle, eh?)

If you have an idea for a future topic for Big or Bullshit, please leave a comment.

Written by David Cohen · Filed Under Blog, Startups | 1 Comment 

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