Southeast VC

Preparing for Your Successful Exit

I'm looking forward to moderating a panel next Tuesday at CED's Engage Finance conference on "Preparing for Your Successful Exit." The conference is going to be held at Kenan-Flagler in Chapel Hill, NC.

My panel is really strong with the following participants:

-Dan Pelak, former CEO of Closure Medical (public co. acquired by J&J for almost $400m)

-Tim Biltz, former COO of SpectraSite (acquired by American Tower for $3.1 billion) and former COO of Vanguard Cellular (acquired by A&T for $900m)

-Cal Hackeman, National Managing Partner, Technology Industry Practice, Grant Thornton

Any questions you want asked? Email me in advance and I'll make sure they're brought up.

The conference is inexpensive (50 bucks) and I think the content will be really good with panelists from organizations like Novak Biddle Venture Partners, Intersouth, Silicon Valley Bank, RBC and ChannelAdvisor. The keynote will be given by Richard Casey, president & CEO of Square 1 Bank.

Hope to see you there.

Shaking the MoneyTree: Good Place to Meet VCs and Entrepreneurs

I know a lot of entrepreneurs feel like they have a hard time getting to know the VCs in their community. Some make the comment that VCs won't call/e-mail them back. Well, I have a way to get around all that. Find out where the VCs are and then go and introduce yourself in person - even better! One example:

PricewaterhouseCoopers' runs a really good quarterly breakfast called "Shaking the MoneyTree" where they give an overview of venture capital trends over the last quarter and talk about where the market is heading.  They then turn it over to 2 VCs (usually one local and one out of state firm) who then talk about their background, what they look for and they also give comments about some of the VC trends they see in the market. From attending over the last 6 years, I know the quarterly breakfast in RTP attracts ALL the NC-based VCs every quarter. I think it is great because it gives regional VCs and entrepreneurs a chance to mingle in a very informal setting. I need to quickly mention that this event is EXCLUSIVELY for VCs and emerging technology companies.

Next opportunity to attend:

Friday, May 19

Embassy Suites, Cary

Starts at 7:15am - (YOU WILL NEED TO REGISTER WITH LAURA TROY LAURA.TROY@US.PWC.COM)

This is a good way to sit next to the VCs, introduce yourself over breakfast and get to know them a lot better. And, the key is to attend regularly. Not only will you meet a lot of good people, but also you will learn more about the different VC firms in your market (PWC does a great job rotating around and featuring all the different firms), you will get a better understanding of their criteria and you will see where the money is flowing locally and nationally.

Top E-Commerce Owners Gather for Marathon

I'm late in posting this, but I spent the second half of last week at ChannelAdvisor Marathon '06 which was a lot of fun to be part of. (As full disclaimer CA is a SCV portfolio company).

As quick background, based in RTP, NC, ChannelAdvisor provides technology and services that help manufacturers and retailers sell products through online marketplaces (i.e. eBay, Overstock.com, Amazon.com) comparison shopping engines (i.e. Shopping.com, Shopzilla, Nextag, Froogle) and search engines (i.e. Google, Yahoo).

The conference pulled together hundreds of their customers and prospects along with top execs from partners like Google, eBay, Overstock.com, PayPal, IAC and Shopping.com. Not only was the conference great for customers/prospects to get the latest industry information straight from the source, but CA also brought in some other speakers (which included me right after Google's keynote) to talk about other ways to grow their businesses. This was good for me to be part of with my interest in e-commerce companies.

By the way, I need to mention that I was really impressed with the way ChannelAdvisor ran the conference, always very polished.  Great job by their sales and marketing teams!

Forbes Lists 3 NC Cities to Top 25 List of "Best Places to Do Business"

Raleigh was ranked #2 on Forbes' list of best places to do business. A lot of factors were considered including colleges, cost of doing business (cost of labor, energy, taxes and office space), crime rate, culture & leisure, educational attainment, income growth, job growth and net migration.

The Triangle has ranked in the top 10 the last 4 years and NC is the only state with 3 cities listed in the top 25.

For more info, check out the Forbes report, the News & Observer article or the column from Local Tech Wire.

CED Venture 2006

It was a really busy week - lots of really late nights/incredibly early mornings and I am surprised I am still at the office on a Friday night, but just wanted to capture some thoughts before I go home and collapse :)

I spent the first part of the week at CED's Venture 2006. (I'll blog about the rest of my week later - which was also a lot of fun btw)  Over 700 people attended including over 240 investors and almost 30 North Carolina companies presented. It seemed the number of out of state investors attending significantly increased from past years. Good to see a lot of firms from Boston, Mid-Atlantic and a few that made the trip from Silicon Valley. For many of them, it was their first trip to NC and I really enjoyed spending time with everyone there.

It is amazing how important this conference has been for NC. How significant is the impact? Here are some recent stats I read:

- Current and past Venture presenters raised $355 million in '05 (which is over 67% of the $530m raised in NC last year).

- Companies that presented last year raised over $226 million just since last year's conference

- Since 2001, current and past Venture presenters have raised $1.2 billion

Thanks to all the folks at CED for their help putting on another successful conference. For those that attended, additional comments welcome!