I’m not Paul Allen the Billionaire (yet)
Someone told me that venture capitalists in Utah have dubbed me Paul Allen the Lesser so that when they are talking about me they aren?t confusing me with Paul G. (as in ?greater?) Allen, the multi-billionaire co-founder of Microsoft.
What Does it Take to IPO?
According to Heidi Huntsman, partner at UV Partners, who spoke yesterday at the Mountain West Venture Group lunch, the average length of time between initial funding and a company's IPO is now over 5 years (it used to be as low as 3 years), and the average level of funding raised by company's that have an IPO is now $90 million.
MyFamily.com Hires New CFO
MyFamily.com today announced that it hired David H. Rinn, 11-year Microsoft veteran, as its Chief Financial Officer.
Nanotech at BYU
Steve Jurvetson has an interview on Always-On where he stated that the 18 investments they have made in nanotechnology have all come from universities or government-funded research. The cost of doing nanotech research is enormous. So I suppose if I want to get involved in nanotechnology, I should look in my own backyard first, at BYU. A patent attorney of mine just told me about a BYU professor involved in nanotechnology.
Garage.com Conference Next Week
Angel Investors in Utah
I'm studying the definitive work on '>Angel Investing by two Harvard Business School professors. One of the primary points of the book is that the contribution of angels to entrepreneurship is highly underrated. VCs seem to get all the press. But the book claims that "Business angels fund thirty to forty times more ventures each year than venture capitalists."
VCs tend to fund larger deals and angels tend to fund smaller, earlier stage deals.
Ask Jeeves: Tukaroo
Nanotechnology Investing
Implementing tried and true internet marketing and development strategies for our portfolio companies continues to generate traffic, revenue and market presence. It's rewarding when search engine, affiliate, and email marketing strategies work over and over again. But it's also a bit predictable and just ever-so-slightly boring to keep doing the same things (howbeit successfully) again and again. I've felt for some time that I need to gear up for the next big wave, the next new technology that can challenge my imagination and creativity.
