I am pleased to announce our second monthly Meet The VC event will take place on October 17th from 7:30 to 9:30 am. I am doubly pleased to announce that our featured VC in October will be Vimal Patel of Sierra Ventures who will be making his way to ATDC from Menlo Park, the heart of Silicon Valley.
The basic format of these gatherings is a question and answer session delving into the fund raising process, venture capitalists’ investment criteria, and specific venture capital firm profiles. I plan to ask Vimal about 10 question to kick things off, followed by questions that you can submit in the comments below, and then audience questions.
The event in September went off well with a great deal of energy for early in the morn. The series is free but you need to register to attend.
We look forward to seeing you there!
Last month, a new west coast venture capital fund that is focused on i-Phone applications, was profiled in the national press and revealed a surprising statistic. Since its inception earlier in 2008, this fund has reviewed 2500 deals and made investments in only four companies. That’s right – the fund has invested at a rate of one investment per 625 deals reviewed. While few details are available on the 2500 deals reviewed, I would hypothesize that more than half of these deals were DOA (Dead On Arrival) because they were just "thrown over the transom" and/or poorly positioned from the start. Clearly, securing a proper referral into an investor is critical. However, even if you cut the above ratio in half, the odds against attracting venture capital remain significant. To improve these odds, I often encourage entrepreneurs to approach fundraising similar to how they approach going to market: strategically.
From my experience, a strategic fundraising campaign is composed of several key attributes. Strategic fundraising is investor-centric, milestone-driven, realistic, targeted, anticipatory, and market facing. Over the next few weeks, I will blog on each of these attributes. In the meantime, check out a fundraising strategy template in our library that we use with our clients to organize their fundraising activities.
A packed house filled up TSRB this week for the quarterly DLA Piper Venture Pipeline event.
John Hurley kicked things off by talking a bit about DLA’s Venture Pipeline program. Venture Pipeline is a dedicated team of non-lawyers experienced in technology, startups, and the venture capital markets that take a formalized approach to helping entrepreneurs raise capital on a no direct fee basis.
The VP approach has three tiers: screen by applying VC standards to gauge potential for success; scrub by critically accessing the business plan and provide coaching/feedback on investor docs and presentation; and shop to introduce clients to the right funding sources through the right channels.
John then shared some interesting numbers on VC investment in Georgia for the first half of 2008. John and his numbers were upbeat. The Southeast market is moving up. But money does continue to move to later stage investments where there is less risk.
In the first half of this year 40 companies in Georgia closed institutional funding. This includes ATDC member companies Biofisica, Clearleap, Global Crypto, Qualtre, Solohealth, and Suniva as well as nine companies that have graduated from the incubator program. These 40 Georgia comapnies raised a total of $282 million, well ahead of the pace of 2007, while the number of deals declined from 43 to 40. You can chalk up the diff to the Suniva effect.
From a round type things looked like this:
- Seed: 3%
- Series A 24%
- Series B 11%
- Bridge 14%
- Later 32%
And 16% was other (whatever in the heck that means).
Even more interesting then the round type is the stage of the company when they raised funds:
- Startup: 3%
- Product Dev: 19%
- Clinical Trials: 8%
- Product Avail: 59%
- Profitable: 11%
Clearly well over 70% of companys getting venture funding in Georgia have product on the market. And that 3% number in "Startup" equates to one company.
After John layed all this out Doug Spear moderated a spirited discussion by Lon Chow of Apex Ventures, Carter Griffin of Updata, and Garheng Kong of Intersouth. The key takeaway from this discussion was that Atlanta is a very attractive market for venture captial investing due to diverse deal flow, deep management talent, good infrastruture, collaborative effects, and our risk taking attitude.
If you are eager to learn more about the VC environment in Atlanta wrangle yourself an invite to this next quarter.
Several weeks ago on my personal blog I mentioned that ATDC was going to get involved and create some programming to help improve the startup ecosystem in Georgia. I am pleased to announce the first leg of this effort.
ATDC, with ongoing assistance from Noro-Moseley Partners, has put together a monthly series entitled "Meet the VC". These sessions will serve as a platform for local as well as out of town venture capitalists to engage with the ATDC and the broader Georgia entrepreneur community. These sessions will be open to anyone that cares to attend and not exclusive to ATDC member companies.
This effort has several objectives:
- Introduce top tier local, regional, and national venture capital firms to our market and the investment opportunities available in Georgia;
- Educate the entrepreneurial community about the fund raising process;
- Deliver insight into venture capitalists’ investment criteria;
- Provide specific venture capital firm profiles.
Alan Taetle from Noro-Moseley Partners will open the series on Wednesday, September 17 in the Hodges Room on the 3rd floor of ATDC. We are going to play around with the timing of this as we go but registration for this event will begin at 7:30 am with the program starting at 8:00 am and running for an hour. The series is free but you need to register to attend.
In October we have Trinity Ventures out of Menlo Park slated followed by Frontier Capital from Charlotte in November.
We look forward to seeing you there!
ATDC’s comprehensive fundraising bootcamp, CapVenture, kicked off last week with wise words from people you want to know. The opening session, "Understanding Investors", was led by Jeff Leavitt and included a panel of the biggest investors in town. With industry leaders such as Brendan Mcguire of RBC, Greg Foster of Noro Moseley, Sig Mosley of Imlay Investments, and Fred Sturgis of H.I.G., participating in a panel kicking off the program, CapVenture promises to be worth the effort. During the session, the panel stressed the value of knowing how and – most importantly – when you approach both angel and VC investors.
The 15 technology companies chosen for CapVenture will refine their business and funding strategy, sharpen their fundraising pitch, and participate in events like last week’s session. This year’s group of companies includes: Arterain Medical, Cloud Sherpas, Event Seek, GadZeus, Gotham PC, InterCAX, LocalPrice, ProperNotice, Purewire, Queuent, Radiance Energies, Renovo Data, Servinity, and WORKbits. We intend to make some of the materials that the companies use during the program available online for the broader startup community.
Last year, five of the fifteen CapVenture companies received funding. It will be interesting to see if this bunch can top that. The program cumulates with the opportunity to meet angel and venture investors at the Program Celebration and Venture Forum on October 7th.
ATDC company Qualtre, which is working on advanced motion sensors, closed a $5 million Series A round from Matrix Partners. Employing a fabless semiconductor business model, Qualtre is an early stage company that intends to launch its first product early next year. It will be the first-ever three-axis single-package gyroscope for consumer electronics markets. Sounds complicated. And it is. Qualtre came to ATDC via VentureLab.
TechJournal South has a nice writeup on the funding.
Congrats to Mike Slawson, Farrokh Ayazi, and the rest of the Qualtre team!
Don’t miss entrepreneur and investor, Charlie Paparelli, speaking on "How to Get to the Second Meeting" on Thursday Aug 7, 2008 at 7:30am at ATDC’s 3rd Floor Hodges Room. After the presentation, entrepreneurs are invited to join ATDC’s team in a round table discussion to continue the discussion on this topic or to address other key issues in the fund raising process. If you want to learn from fellow entrepreneurs you should attend this event.
- Organization: Technology Association of Georgia
Event Name: TAG/ATDC Entrepreneurs "How to Get to the Second Meeting"
- Date(s): Aug 7 2008, 07:30 AM to 09:00 AM Presentation
- Entrepreneurs Only Round table: Aug 7 2008, 09:15 AM to 10:15 AM You MUST attend the presentation in order to attend the round table.
- Location: Centergy One Building
- Click Here For Detail: Register Here!
ATDC is looking for a great group of young, early stage companies who can benefit from our fundraising bootcamp program, CapVenture. CapVenture’s focus is on helping companies to improve their fundraising preparation and odds of success (33% of 2007 participants raised money). CapVenture helps entrepreneurs sharpen their strategy, raise their profile and significantly accelerate their network to reach investors. The program is taught by ATDC’s staff but really shines because of all-star set of volunteer serial entrepreneur coaches who are dedicated to support two companies each throughout the program.
The seven week program meets weekly starting August 19th and finishing October 7th with a forum co-hosted by Atlanta Technology Angels. The best CapVenture companies will also have the opportunity to join ATDC in our participation in Venture Atlanta on October 15th. All applicants to CapVenture will be invited to an investor panel to be held on August 19th.
The deadline of July 15th is rapidly approaching. You can apply here.
Todd Merrill of Global Crypto and I recently went on the StartupLounge to talk a bit about CapVenture. It is a good listen.
The call for presenting companies is officially open for Venture Atlanta 2008.
For those of you that may not be aware, Venture Atlanta is the next iteration of the ION Venture Forum, which the Atlanta CEO Council launched and had been hosting since 2002. This new event builds on ION and teams three organizations, The Atlanta CEO Council, Metro Atlana Chamber of Commerce, and the Technology Association of Georgia.
Companies interested in presenting should submit their application online as early as possible, as over 50 companies applied last year. There is NO CHARGE to apply or present for companies, so all applicants are welcome.
The pool of investors attending this event has always been pretty good. There will definitely be over 100 unique firms from across the East Coast as well as some from the West and Pac. NW on hand, so take advantage of this event.
If you would like to get the latest on what’s happening with angel and venture capital term sheets you need to head on over to Troutman Sanders on Tuesday at 11:45.
The event will feature an informative panel including Sig Mosley, Atlanta’s superangel who drives a lot of the angel and venture activity in Georgia, Alan Taetle, Partner with Noro-Moseley Partners who is putting newly raised money to work, and Mike Siavage of Siavage Law Group.
The event is being catered by The Varsity. Come out and enjoy a Varsity lunch while meeting investors and learning about the terms they are dishing out. Below are the details.
Location: Troutman Sanders
600 Peachtree Street, Suite 5200
Atlanta 30308
Time: 11:45 – 1:15
Cost: $25
Register here.