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Thursday, January 8, 2009
7:30 to 9am
Technology Square Research Building
85 5th Street, NW
Atlanta, GA
Map
Register
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On January 8th at the monthly TAG/ATDC Entrepreneurs Society meeting the GRA/TAG 2009 Business Launch Competition will officially kickoff. The winner of the competition will receive a $100,000 cash award courtesy of the GRA and a diverse array of services valued at an additional $200,000! This year the competition is focusing on Internet technologies. This includes companies that are developing products, online services, or backend technologies that are using or extending the reach, flexibility and ease of the internet. There is a particular interest in companies within the fields of digital media/technology, cleantech, mobility and securities. If you have a start-up business that fits in one of this areas and would like to get your hands on the prize you are going to want to attend this session.
Come hear from past winners, ReachCall, IVOX and
Acculynk, as the CEOs from each of these
companies tell us of their progress since they won. Then I am going to moderate a session to provide some insight into what it takes to make it to the finals. Details regarding the 2009
competition will also be provided.
Register now!
TechJournal South had a great article a few weeks ago about raising money in the current economy. Bill Warner, managing partner at business consulting firm, Paladin and Associates, reminds entrepreneurs that having discipline and focus is a top priority at all times, not only in tough economic times. Investors are calling for a conservation of cash, rethinking the revenue plan, justifying capital purchases and a positive cash flow. These greater efficiencies are a good target for successful business, investments and exits. Mr. Warner ends the article with an encouraging word to keep going, redouble efforts and make a positive return quickly.
Entrepreneurs at all stages can benefit from these reminders.
Zenda Technologies provides a quick screening device for the earliest signs of Alzheimer's Disease, a condition affecting 5 million Americans today, with expectations of 15 million by 2050. Zenda’s device is specifically designed for use by primary care physicians to make early detection of Alzheimer’s both practical and affordable – and early detection is key to the initiation of drug therapies to postpone the ill effects of Alzheimer’s.
Zenda is the latest company to emerge from Georgia Tech’s VentureLab and join ATDC. Zenda’s technology is based on over 6 years of research at Georgia Tech and Emory, and has been validated by three major clinical studies. Zenda’s device consists of a headset that provides visual and auditory isolation, and a handheld input console to record responses.
Their unique IP is their immersive testing environment that reduces errors, gives more consistent scoring and, most importantly, drastically reduces the amount of time to complete neuropsychological tests.
Zenda is bringing exciting and important technology to market. We are pleased to welcome them to ATDC.
VentureLab graduate and ATDC member company Simatra Modeling Technologies won the Grand My Pitch Sucked Less Award last night at Startup Gauntlet. And as a result became the first company to gain entry to Startup Riot and the TAG Top 40.
Way to throw it down Michael!
ATDC is pretty excited to be the host sponsor of CloudCamp Atlanta which will take place on on January 20th from 4:00 to 9:30 pm.
CloudCamp is an unconference where attendees can exchange ideas,
knowledge and information in a creative and supporting environment,
advancing the current state of cloud computing and related
technologies. Like any unconference, CloudCamp is an informal member-supported gathering that relies
entirely on volunteers to help with meeting content, speakers, meeting
locations, equipment and membership recruitment.
This is going to be a popular event. About 80 people have registered to attend. Join them.
Exciting news from ATDC member company SimCraft. Auto Racing Daily is reporting they recently inked an endorsement deal with IndyCar and Indy 500 driver and team owner Sarah Fisher to launch their series of racing simulators at the 2009 International CES, Jan. 8-11, 2009, in Las Vegas. Sean MacDonald, founder of SimCraft, has made amazing progress since the company joined ATDC in July, 2006 – from first prototype to a full line of products and now Sarah Fisher at CES. Congratulations Sean!
And even if you don't care too much about SimCraft you have to check out the cat fight between Danica Patrick and Milka Duno on the same page.
If you have not seen the news from The Atlanta Business Chronicle or TechJournal South, 2080 Media (aka PlayOn Sports) has raised $3 million in a round led by Imlay Investments with Noro-Mosely Partners participating. What you may not have heard is that ATDC Entrepreneur in Residence MIke Eckert is going to be joining PlayOn's board along with Greg Foster of NMP. What I know that you have not heard is that the company joined ATDC last week.
PlayOn is a digital media company providing an end-to-end solution for the production, management, and distribution of professional quality TV-like live events over the Internet at a fraction of the cost of traditional television. Led by David Rudolph, the company is technology and asset spin out from Turner Broadcasting. More then four years has been spent testing and perfecting the PlayOn platform.
PlayOn's initial market focus will be on sports content. The company has seen demand from organizations such as universities, high schools, and leagues to generate media exposure for their sports and programs. Aside from the direct financial benefit the exposure provides, it also has a positive effect on recruiting, alumni cultivation, and general awareness. Media entities have also desire the exclusive sports content that PlayOn enables them to create and distribute.
PlayOn is shooting for the big space between user generated content at YouTube quality and what you see on ESPN every day. Should be an exciting to watch the game unfold.
Our very own venture catalyst, Lance Weatherby, spoke with local attorney, Rob Hassett, about ATDC for Business to Business magazine. Lance answered questions such as: why the ATDC was started, how it helps new technology and bioscience ventures,
what it takes to become a member company, how it has impacted Georgia and how
new members are picked. It's a very informative piece if you are interested in ATDC, want to know more about what we do here and how ATDC helps technology entrepreneurs in Georgia. To listen to the podcast click here.
Last week while the rest of the world was hustling to get ready for Thanksgiving, ATDC member company Pramana was hustling to get featured in Forbes.
Pramana's HumanPresent technology enables Web sites and applications to know that a human is on the other side of a transaction. The problem is this. The current alternative to HumanPresent technology are those annoying deformed letters, words, and numbers, that sites such as TicketMaster use to make sure that only humans and not robots are trying to access their site. These are called CAPTCHAs for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. And who has not tried a CAPTCHA at least once and failed?
With Pramana's technology CAPTCHAs could be a thing of the past. And that would make the Internet a much more enjoyable place.
Charlie Paparelli – President and founder of Paparelli Ventures, a pre-formation investment company focused on entrepreneurs in the Atlanta technology community.
Participating Preferred - A type of preferred stock that gives the holder the right to receive preferred dividends as well as an additional dividend based on some predetermined condition. The additional dividend paid to preferred shareholders is commonly structured to be paid only if the amount of dividends that common shareholders receive exceeds a specified per-share amount.
Pay-to-Play Provision – An investor must keep "paying" (participating pro-ratably in future financing) in order to keep "playing" (not have his preferred stock converted to common stock) in the company.
PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) – A widely-used general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML.
Preferred Stock – A class of ownership in a corporation that has a higher claim on the assets and earnings than common stock. Preferred stock generally has a dividend that must be paid out before dividends to common stockholders and the shares usually do not have voting rights.
Pre-Money Valuation – A term used in private equity or venture capital that refers to the valuation of a company or asset prior to an investment or financing. External investors, such as venture capitalists and angel investors will use a pre-money valuation to determine how much equity to demand in return for their cash injection to an entrepreneur and his or her startup company. Pre- and post-money valuation concepts apply to each round of financing.
Pro-rata – A method of assigning an amount to a fraction, according to its share of the whole. For example, a pro-rata dividend means that every shareholder gets an equal proportion for each share he or she owns. Pro-rating also refers to the practice of applying interest rates to different time frames. If the interest rate was 12% per annum, you could pro-rate this number to be 1% a month.
Protective Provisions -Veto rights that investors have on certain actions by the company. The protective provisions are often hotly negotiated. Entrepreneurs would like to see few or no protective provisions in their documents. VC's, in contrast, would like to have some veto-level control over a subset of actions the company could take, especially when it impacts the VC's economic positions.
Polaris Ventures – Polaris invests in seed, early stage, and middle market companies in high growth industries. As the lead or co-lead investor, they take an active and long term role in helping management teams build highly successful business. Polaris has over $3 billion under management and current investments in more than 90 companies.
Post-Money Valuation – The value of the company after the investment has been made. This value is equal to the sum of the pre-money valuation and the amount of new equity. The implied post-money valuation is calculated as the dollar amount of investment divided by the equity stake gained in an investment.
Purewire – ATDC member company that secures business and social interactions on the Web. Founded by veteran security industry entrepreneurs, the company offers Web security-as-a-service to increase ROI and lower the total cost of security for businesses.
