Notes from a Successful New England Venture Summit – 2009 Edition

I think one would have that yesterday’s New England Venture Summit in Dedham was one of the more successful east coast venture events of 2009. Kudos to Joe Benjamin and his team at YoungStartup Ventures for producing a conference which had great energy. Judging by the estimated attendance at the door, the event also appeared to have had a record turnout, in spite of all the uncertainty currently permeating the venture industry.  The panels were good, the presenters on a whole quite solid. It was really a pleasure serving again as co-chair for the event.

Although I haven’t had a lot of time to process my thoughts coming out of the Summit, here are a few of my first-blush takeaways.

Is IT Spending Ready to Bounce?

At the Dow Jones PEA Conference a couple weeks ago, Jim Breyer gave an interview in which he questioned the short-term optimism that has swept up many observers of the current economic recovery. But Jim also noted that, over the longer term, pent up demand will lead to a surge in IT infrastructure spending, as corporate IT budgets loosen again. Jim felt that this surge, starting perhaps as soon as next year, will be particularly good for those mid-stage venture-backed companies positioned to take advantage of it.

My sense of what’s happening with our own portfolio companies suggests a similar perspective.

Why M&A Will Lead the Way

There has been much discussion over the last several years lamenting the state of the IPO market and the trauma of taking a company public. The prevailing wisdom is that the cost of going public (SarbOx, etc) and the unattractiveness of the market are forcing companies to sell out. It is a sad story but only partially true.

Puttin’ on the Hits (Part 3): The Impact of Hit Centric Venture Capital on Tech Companies

Extending the argument I’ve made in previous posts on the same subject (Part 1 and Part 2), this post explores the impact of the hits model of venture investing on early and mid-stage tech companies

The Anti-Tweet

Although it may not be trendy to say it, I am sick and tired of hearing mundane information about the doings of friends, near friends or people that I mistakenly agreed to acknowledge on Facebook, LinkedIn or whatever. I am amazed at the amount of time that many people spend writing or looking at stuff that no one should really care about. “I am going to the store now”. “I just got back from walking the dog”. SHUT UP! I am not your child or your spouse and I don’t really need or care to know what you’re up to unless you are saving someone or the environment or you have created some new competitive advantage for our society. (The social networks fall into neither category).

Death by Nanoparticle

Recently, an article in the European Respiratory Journal linked seven cases of lung damage and two deaths among workers at a Chinese manufacturing plant with exposure to nanoparticles. While a number of previous studies have pointed to possible lung damage from nanoparticle exposure based on animal research findings, the ERJ’s article was the first clinical study to cite nanotoxicity as a proximal cause of death in humans.

Early responses from nanotech proponents have for the most part downplayed both the incident and the report. Some have even made light of the incident as just another example of the laxness of Chinese workplace hygiene.

But given this attitude, and with other recent studies raising additional questions about the risks of nanoparticle exposure, one has to ask: how many deaths will be required before the wider population begins to rouse itself and enter the debate about nanotech safety?

Puttin’ on the Hits (Part 2): The Implications of Hit Centric Investing for VC Fund Performance

In Part 1 of this post, I agreed with Jack Myers’ opinion that a hit-centric mentality continues to pervade the investment activities of many venture capitalists. This hit-centric view emphasizes the identification of a tiny number of blockbuster hits at the expense of underwriting large numbers of high-risk ventures that fail. It is a perspective that VC Peter Rip has referred to as “fund twenty, pray for two.” The view emerged gradually among a number of VCs during the bull markets of the Roaring Eighties, and became ingrained among many, if not most, early- and multi-stage VCs during the Long Boom of the 1990s. 

I believe that hit-centric venture capital is the largest elephant in the room when VCs, LPs and industry analysts ask the question: is the VC model broken?