Twenty Companies Ranging From Seed Stage to Mezzanine Will Showcase Next Generation Technologies from Various Industries at the 27th Annual VCIR Winter 2010 Conference Denver, CO, February 23, 2010 – The Rocky Mountain Venture Capital Association today unveiled its final lineup of growth companies at the 27th annual Venture Capital in the Rockies (VCIR) 2010 Winter conference. This year’s conference will highlight twenty promising early-growth companies; all based in the Rocky Mountain region and a majority of which are focused on clean technology, a burgeoning industry in the area. The VCIR Winter 2010 conference will be held at the Park Hyatt in Beaver Creek, Colorado, February 23-25, showcasing early-growth companies from Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and…
Archives / February, 2010
We don’t charge companies to present at VCIR
There’s been an extremely lively debate online over the last few months about the practice of charging entrepreneurs to present to VCs. You can see my post on that subject here, one from my partner Jason Mendelson over on peHUB here, Jason Calicanis’ very popular post on the subject here (and a quick search on Google will pick up dozens more). At issue is the question of whether it’s reasonable to charge entrepreneurs to get in front of potential investors. I’m clearly on the side of not charging entrepreneurs to pitch to investor groups – reputable events of this nature can attract sponsor dollars and/or the angel investors involved should be footing the (relatively small) bill. While the original discussion…
The things they say
As promised in my last post on adoption, below are some of the amusing, crazy and occasionally insulting things that people have said to us over the years about adoption. I generally give my friends a lot of latitude around this stuff since they all mean well. So please don’t think I’m singling you out (or mad at you) if you’ve said one of these things to me (other than the Bradgalina one – that does universally annoy me) <g>. My hope in posting this is to raise awareness just a bit and make people think a bit more before they ask these questions. Language and intent really do matter here… “What do I call _____”. First a few thoughts…
A note to Colorado technologists – Attend Glue!
I’m reposting a note from Eric Norlin, our partner in both the Glue and Defrag conferences which really struck a chord with me. While Foundry invests across the US, we’re based in Colorado and do our best to support the local startup ecosystem. As part of this we very deliberately set up camp with both Glue and Defrag here in our backyard in an effort to make Denver/Boulder the center of the technology universe for a few days of in depth discussion and networking around all things technology. Glue is coming up at the end of May. It’s an in depth look at the “connective” technologies that are changing the way we live and work. If you’re a technologist that’s…
Some thoughts on adoption
I don’t often write about very personal topics on this blog (although hopefully my personality shows through in my writing some) but with my wife 8,500 miles away adopting our third child (2nd adopted child) I thought that I might take a post or two to talk about our experience. I wrote about adoption after we came home with our now 5 1/2 year old daughter a few years ago and was turned off by the experience after receiving some annoying comment traffic (mostly challenging me on why we didn’t adopt domestically – none of their business, of course, but especially in the way they commented about it). I expect I’ll see some of that again, but I’m hoping to…
If you read nothing else…
I’ve received a few lengthy emails recently that contained the following: IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE READ THIS SECTION While I suppose one could argue that this encourages the reader to skip over the rest of the email, I disagree. I think it’s brilliant. Each email was full of information – the kind that takes a good chunk of time to parse through and think about. They were the kind of email that ends up in your “read later when you have time” folder which would have been fine assuming that you 1) got back to it at all and 2) got back to it in a somewhat timely manner – they each required a response. The “READ THIS NOW”…
VCIR Success – by the numbers
This is a cross post from the VCIR blog. We recently put together an analysis of companies that have presented at VCIR over the last 10 years. And the numbers are pretty impressive – reinforcing why the conference is such a great opportunity to see great companies from around the rocky mountain region. For more information on the conference itself, including how to register, visit the VCIR Winter website. VCIR By the Numbers: Presenting companies: 212 Companies who raised additional funding after their VCIR appearance: 127 Total funding raised by these companies (only includes amounts raised after their VCIR presentations): $2.5 Billion Presenting companies acquired: 29 Total acquisition value (includes announced values for 19 of the 29 transactions): $4.4 Billion…
Oppose HB 1192 – The “Software Tax”
My longtime friend Marion Jenkins, CEO of IT consultant QSE Technologies wrote what I think is one of the most eloquent and well thought out rebuttals to the proposed Colorado “Software Tax” (HB 1192). With his permission I’m posting it here in its entirety. If you feel the way I do about this issue, I urge you to take a stand on this issue. I urge you to oppose HB 1192, the so-called “Software” Tax. It is bad legislation and it will add significantly to non-productive administrative and legal overhead and kill productivity within the technology sector in Colorado (including not only technology-related businesses, but virtually every business – and every consumer – who uses technology). It will also lead…