Southeast VC

Launching a New Company? Here is a Good Starting Point.

If you're thinking about starting a company, here is a really good presentation that David Spitz gave a few months back at CED's Innovator's Workshop. Download spitz_innovators_workshop.ppt

You should go through this closely to make sure you're thinking about many of the key issues in starting a business (how do you know there is a market, what it takes to win, where will the money come from, building out a team + a ton more).

Dave knows his stuff after being CEO of several venture backed companies. He is now VP of Bus Dev at ChannelAdvisor, one of our portfolio companies. Thanks to Dave for giving me a copy to post here.

Venture Capital Trends - Data from PWC

Just a quick summary on last month's Q2 Shaking the MoneyTree breakfast by PWC. I attached the full presentation here: Download pwc_raleigh_q2_report.ppt. This is really good to look at since it walks through the regional and national venture capital landscape. It contains a lot of graphs to help get a better sense of trends.

Some highlights from this report:

- During Q2, Southeast-based companies took in $293.5m in venture capital, that is a 11% increase over Q1. The Mid-Atlantic area took in $454.7m, a 142.8% jump from Q1.

- North Carolina ranked #9 in VC raised with $150m (that's a little over 1/2 of the Southeast number). NC continues to be in the top 10 on a pretty consistent basis.

- Nationally, there was a 33.4% jump in venture capital invested in seed/early stage companies in Q1 to $291.8m. This is a good sign.

- Biotech, usually a big area of investment in NC (25-40% of dollars invested by VCs go have gone into biotech here) fell pretty significantly to under 15%.

The report also lists the most active VCs nationally, VC returns and if you're local and raising money, the report has a list at the end of most active VCs investing in NC.

Silicon Valley Leadership Group Ranks Raleigh #1 - Again!

In an annual ranking of 12 tech hubs recently announced by the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, Raleigh once again ranked #1 based on:

- low unemployment rates

- large % of people able to afford a median priced house

- little traffic congestion (20-30 minutes doesn't count NC residents!)

- eighth grade math achievement

- low electricity costs

- lower state tax rates

One of the reasons why Silicon Valley came in last (for the second year in a row) was the expense of the houses. It claimed that less than 15% of the houses are affordable to the median salary that folks make there. Locally, that number is 65.8%.

Don't get me wrong, we can't argue with the success of Silicon Valley - not to mention all the venture capital that gets pumped into that market each quarter. Last quarter was over $2 billion. But its nice to see the Raleigh area recognized for some of the advantages that are helping make this area successful.

Square 1 Bank - A Year Later

I hope everyone had a good long weekend. Here is a very detailed article on Square 1 Bank that was published this past Friday. Square 1 is a venture bank that competes with Silicon Valley Bank and Comerica.

We're really fortunate to have the bank headquartered in Durham, N.C. and they also have 8 offices throughout the US in all the major tech hubs. I've found most of the employees are former Comerica or SVB execs so they know the ropes. And they hired some former VCs - like in Boston.

I have a lot of experience working with them over the last yr and am really impressed. If you're looking for a venture bank, I'd recommend you connect with them. Let me know if I can help.

And here are some quick highlights on Square 1's financials from the TBJ article:

- Assets: As of June 30, the bank had $277m in assets (that is up 164% from that same time last year).  As of August 30, that number already climbed to $360m.

- Loans: As of June 30, they had $79 million in loans (up almost 800% from last yr). That has already risen to $108m as of August 30.

- Total deposits: As of June 30, it was 179m up 130% from last yr, but that number has already gone to $268m.

Hard to argue with the growth.  :)