Venture capital investors are pushing younger startups out of the nest these days. Driven by pent-up buyers and sellers on both sides of transactions, time to liquidity is shortening in the venture industry, according to analyst reports.

The market for acquisitions of U.S. companies will have been worth about $212.6 billion in the first quarter, according to a preliminary report by Dealogic. That’s a lower number than Q1 2009—likely because of two mammoth pharma deals that closed during the year-ago period: Pfizer Inc.’s $68 billion merger with Wyeth, and Merck & Co. Inc.’s $41.1 billion deal for Schering-Plough.

This quarter’s deal announcements included two large Massachusetts deals, both take-privates—Millipore’s $7.2 billion acquisition by Merck, and Bain Capital’s $1.1 billion grab of Skillsoft. Deals of that magnitude indicate the market is recovering overall, but other factors are at play in the market for small startups with a technological edge, said Peter Falvey, managing director at Revolution Partners, a Boston, Massachusetts, investment bank that focuses on tech M&As.

Lots of you enjoyed my post a few weeks ago on buzz and fund size among NYC venture firms. But why not take it further? Why not use all the data in Crunchbase of financings of NYC companies over the past five years?

So that’s what we did. And we got data for 814 venture financings since March 2005 worth a total of $3.1 billion. We were careful to exclude angel and strategic investors, since data around those deals are poor and would make the results harder to parse.

To start, let’s look at all venture firms that have completed over 7 financings of NYC-based companies in the past 5 years. Here, you can see how they stack up based on number of deals done:

Unfortunately, you can't always explain why a venture capitalist chooses to invest in one startup and not in another. Despite what some will claim, there is no magic formula that entrepreneurs can follow to assure them funding 100% of the time; these are just guidelines to follow to increase your chances, but in the end, a VC's decision is not always about the quality of the company, idea or founders. It's like in a relationship when one party breaks it off by saying, "It's not you, it's me," only for VCs they actually mean it most of the time.

DFJ Gotham Ventures investor Mark Davis, who blogs over at Venture Made Transparent wrote Tuesday about how sometimes, even when looking at a great company with a promising future, VCs (himself included) still say no. The reason? Well, for VCs, investing in a startup is a lot more than just determining whether it will have a prosperous future.

Ultimately, VCs are looking for a financial return on their investment, and while potentially successful startups can mean quick bucks for entrepreneurs, the VC may not stand to benefit as much from investing as they would like. It sounds mean and nasty, but VCs don't exist to simply shell out cash to worthy companies; they have been tasked with taking a venture fund and investing in companies that will provide high returns.

TR 35 is the annual competition driven by Technology Review, a publication published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), to select and recognized the top 35 young innovators under the age of 35.

TR 35 is the annual competition driven by MIT's Technology Review, to select and recognized the top 35 young innovators under the age of 35.

Nominations opened on March 18 and will close on March 31. The editors for TR are looking for "technological trendsetters that are launching new businesses and creating new industries" in various fields including but not limited to medicine, computing, communications, electronics and nanotechnology. Two of the 35 will be names Innovator of the Year and Humanitarian of the Year.

OK, hiring is a loooong topic and I couldn’t do it justice in single post. But I thought it might be useful to do a headline view of the key components and then come back and do the individual topics over time if people seem interested. I’ve been recruiting for 20 years so I’ve learned a few things along the way. I think this can also be a great resource for others to chip in with other suggestions since I clearly don’t corner the market on recruiting advice.

BEFORE YOU START

1. Define criteria for judging – I find that many people I know go into interviews without thinking about what is important to them first.  In fact, many people just go into interviews and “wing it.”  If that’s you then vow never to do it again.  You’ll never have a great outcome without some planning.  I recommend that you design a standardized form broken down into high level criteria such as, “Intellect, Work Experience, Personality, Attributes Required for this Job, etc.” and then sub categories underneath.  Example: Work Experience can be broken down into: has managed a team, has led direct sales efforts, has worked for a startup before, etc.  And on this form score everybody 1-10.

Today the first ever Young Social Entrepreneurs (YSEC) of Canada conference, re:Vision 2010, kicks off in Toronto, Ontario. With students, innovation centers, coworking spaces and an increasingly vibrant startup scene, Toronto is a place to watch.

Like so many groups, YSEC started as a regular conversation, held around couches and drinks by a group of friends who were increasingly excited about the emergence of the social enterprise field as a place to channel passion and energy for good. Last fall, they formalized the organization and have begun to undertake a series of programs including Monthly Meetups, Pitch Competitions, and now a conference -- all designed to create context for young changemakers to get together and begin building.

The conference is meant to be a chance for the community to come together. I'll be speaking later, as will "How To Change The World," author David Bornstein. But by and large, the community attending and facilitating are deeply invested in this particular innovation community.

SSTI - Milwaukee's Public Policy Forum finds that the city has a stronger lean manufacturing/high-tech workforce than many of its peer cities, but still faces challenges in new high-tech business starts and patent generation. The study used benchmarks from six other metropolitan areas, including Austin, Kansas City, Portland, Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Minneapolis. The report recommends new efforts to improve patent activity, resident educational attainment and number of SBIR awards. Read the full report at: http://www.publicpolicyforum.org/pdfs/InnovationIndex.pdf.

Reporting from San Francisco - The 700 people lucky enough to work for online social-games maker Zynga Game Network Inc. feast on exotic gourmet grub prepared by professional chefs. They soothe stress with a visit to the company masseuse or reflexologist. And they take a break to get their hair cut. All for free.

If singled out for a quarterly award, an employee can win a weekend spin in a $200,000 Lamborghini or a carload of vested stock.

No perk is too small.

Administrative assistants are even dispatched to engineers' homes to wait for the cable guy so engineers can stay laser-focused on developing the next hit game.

Ask the attorney: M&A waters can be dangerous – especially for the buyer – Buying a competitor is a sign of strength, but one that also carries a lot of risk. Attorney Scott Edward Walker runs down four more things to watch out for – and ways to keep the upper hand.

5 ways startups can slay giants – Entrepreneurs regularly face off against companies significantly larger than them. It’s an uphill battle, but not an impossible one. Dave Kellogg, CEO of Mark Logic, offers five ways to maximize the odds of your success.

6 critical tips for launching a startup while holding a day job –It’s not uncommon to launch your first startup while you still hold a day job. That’s fine, says angel investor Jason Cohen, but there are some legal landmines you need to watch out for. Here’s how to protect yourself – and your startup.

Lines at the grocery store might become as obsolete as milkmen, if a new tag that seeks to replace bar codes becomes commonplace.

sciencenewsResearchers from Sunchon National University in Suncheon, South Korea, and Rice University in Houston have built a radio frequency identification tag that can be printed directly onto cereal boxes and potato chip bags. The tag uses ink laced with carbon nanotubes to print electronics on paper or plastic that could instantly transmit information about a cart full of groceries.

“You could run your cart by a detector and it tells you instantly what’s in the cart,” says James M. Tour of Rice University, whose research group invented the ink. “No more lines, you just walk out with your stuff.”

RFID tags are already used widely in passports, library books and gadgets that let cars fly through tollbooths without cash. But those tags are made from silicon, which is more expensive than paper and has to be stuck onto the product as a second step.

Yesterday, the National Economic Council in the White House put out an announcement Request for Information on Commercialization of University Research. As part of the earlier announced Obama innovation strategy:

the Administration is interested in working with all stakeholders (including universities, companies, Federal research labs, entrepreneurs, investors, and non-profits) to identify ways in which we can increase the economic impact of Federal investment in university R&D and the innovations being fostered in Federal and private proof of concept centers (POCCs). This RFI is designed to collect input from the public on ideas for promoting the commercialization of Federally funded research. The first section of the RFI seeks public comments on how best to encourage commercialization of university research. The second section of the RFI seeks public comments on whether POCCs can be a means of stimulating the commercialization of early-stage technologies by bridging the "valley of death.''

A couple of weeks back we covered on how Department of Science & Technology is trying to firm up a platform for Technology startups (ICT) in Delhi / India. At the end of the post we also recommended a look at some international gov-sponsored ecosystems nearby that could lend relevancy to the design & execution of such an initiative in India. We also highlighted a need to bring in funding aspects for the Indian entrepreneurs from the Government and subsidization of living costs of such high-risk-taking individuals.

Here let us look at an example – of Singapore – and its entrepreneurship model that has benefited a plethora of tech startups and entrepreneurs both within & outside of the country. Also a glance at their performance indicators will help us prepare a better underlay for our own ecosystem i.e. State Sponsored Entrepreneurship in India. Government initiatives like these will not only nurture talent & competitiveness along with stability, funding & access to market but also lead to breakthrough innovations & wealth creation for thecountry sponsoring it.

In the United States, innovation has become almost synonymous with economic competitiveness. Even more remarkable, we often hear that our economic salvation can only be through innovation. We hear that because of low Asian wages we must innovate because we cannot really compete in anything else. Inventive Americans will do the R&D and let the rest of the world, usually China, do the dull work of actually making things. Or we'll do programming design but let the rest of the world, usually India, do low-level programming. This is a totally mistaken belief and one that, if accepted, will consign this nation to second- or third-class status.

The latest offender to advance this line of thought is Thomas Friedman, who has prominently displayed this familiar and entirely incorrect line of thought in the New York Times. Unfortunately, this idea is one that is widely accepted without careful thought about either its truthfulness or its consequences.

As a person who works with a number of firms attempting to improve innovation capabilities, I [Jeffrey Phillips] am constantly astonished by the disconnect between what senior executives say they want and what actually gets done in most businesses, at least within the context of innovation. As they say in government, the president proposes and Congress disposes. Most executives I interact with say they want innovation, but the force of their desire and the clarity of their vision doesn't translate down to the people who will actually do the work. I think there are at least three reasons for this.

First, most senior executives aren't innovators themselves. Most senior executives grew through the organization and moved up by being effective stewards of the company's funds, resource and culture. Most of them were respectful of the history of the company and the brands. They progressed by doing things well, and doing things efficiently. Few senior executives in most organizations got to their posts by being demonstrably different. In fact we create celebrities of the CEOs like Jobs from Apple or Branson from Virgin who are really different CEOs, who shook up an industry or market. Since most senior executives weren't innovators and didn't obtain their jobs because of innovation, they don't really understand what's required when they say they want "innovation". If your CEO or senior executive team is asking for innovation from the organization and you believe they haven't defined what they really want, stop waiting for the definition. Like pornography they'll know it when they see it and not before, and will probably struggle giving you a definition. If you decide to respond, simply write down your objectives and how you think that aligns to corporate strategy and start innovating. Most likely your model will be adopted.

As the mandatory training on innovation via employee engagement came to a close, the employees clapped as if on cue. Was the applause because the training was over, or was it because employees were ready to become engaged and embrace change?

Like some other senior leadership mandates, new concepts driven by exploratory processes often result in reluctant inclusion and conformity rather than acceptance and the desire to be engaged in processes. How do we, as business professionals, own the engagement process that may lead to opportunities for innovation?

The process of innovation may appear to be an individualized activity, but the collective creativity associated with the concept in a corporate environment may lead to growth for businesses as well as the employees. The will to generate ideas and share them with one’s employer is often challenging; the innovative process may or may not be recognized or rewarded. So, the desire to share in generating innovative ideas for corporate use may require some investment in aspects of employee engagement via the building of interactive communities at work.

Disruptive Innovation and Disruptive Technology are Distinctively Defined.

Joseph Bower and Clayton Christensen offered no clear and direct definition of disruptive technology in their influential work "Disruptive Technologies - Catching the Wave" for Harvard Business Review in 1995. They just described cases to illustrate the concept.

Moreover, C.M. Christensen and M.E. Raynor in The Innovator's Solution. Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth in in 2003 already replaced the term disruptive technology with the term disruptive innovation. Hence, both terms are fairly interchangeable.

By Dr. Janice Presser, CEO, The Gabriel Institute

Ask any entrepreneur what it costs to make a hiring mistake and you'll likely be met with a groan and a 'double eye roll'.  Everyone knows the costs:

• The recruiting fees
• The job postings
• The time you spend interviewing
• Your turnover rate causing increased UC contribution costs
• The lawyer's fees for the employment contract, figuring out how to break the contract, and sometimes additional fees--plus the tax on your time and patience--required to defend yourself against wrongful termination!

Think of these these costs as 'direct damage':  a real strain on any entrepreneur's budget, but not an unexpected cost of doing business.  Bad hires happen.  But wait.....have you considered the 'collateral damage'?

No hiring decision happens in a vacuum.  You need your team to be whole. You have a missing part.  You seek to fill it in a way that capitalizes on the assets of your existing team members - and makes up for their deficits.  That's why prudent employers engage search specialists, scour resumes, do 360-degree interviews, personality tests, reference checks, and even credit checks (where allowed by law).  But somehow, bad hires still happen, and when they happen to you, you're naturally disappointed.  Or worse.  Because if you've pegged your hopes and plans on the wrong person, it's the collateral damage that costs so much more than the hiring failure.

I have a few different friends who are trying their hands at entrepreneurship; some have met with investors already, while others are closing in on their meeting date with anticipation and uncertainty. Based on hearing some of the things they were doing to prepare for their meeting, I thought it would be wise to roundup some of the best pitch advice I've come across not only for them but for the other first time entrepreneurs out there who may not know what typical VC pitches are like.

Pitches range in length from 5 quick minutes to a half hour or more, but what I have consistently seen while researching this topic is that no matter what length the pitch is, the key is to keep things simple and understandable while not patronizing the VC. But don't take my word for it, here is advice from six venture capitalists on various aspects of the all important pitch.

The World Economic Forum (the folks behind the yearly Davos meeting) surveyed 133 nations recently to work out how well each is networked up. Measured by a number of criteria, the U.S. slipped from third last year to fifth in 2010.

Before you get all defensive and "The U.S. is a big nation, facing unique hurdles to national broadband" on me, the WEF's index is actually measured against a large list of different criteria, including such esoterica as availability of venture capital funding, and maths and science education. The complex scoring system is consistent year on year though, so the U.S.'s slip from third to fifth place is significant. Top this year is Sweden, followed by Singapore, Denmark and Switzerland. Finland, Canada, Denmark and Norway make up the rest of the top ten, with the U.K. sliding in at 13th place.

"Chairwoman Velazquez, Ranking Member Graves, and all of the members of the Committee, thank you for holding this hearing on business incubators and their role in job creation. I am pleased to discuss how angel investors support innovative start-up companies, some of which work with business incubators and accelerators.

"My name is Peter Linder, and I am pleased to represent the Angel Capital Education Foundation, a national source of education and research about angel investing, and the growing community of sophisticated private investors known as “angel investors” who invest money and expertise in high potential start-up companies. I am a long-time angel investor in the Philadelphia area, having invested in 17 start-up companies as an individual and another 14 businesses through the Mid-Atlantic Angel Group Fund, which brings together 90 angel investors to invest in and support promising businesses.

"I also a member of ACEF’s sister organization, the Angel Capital Association (ACA) the professional alliance of angel groups in the United States and Canada, with 150 member angel groups in 44 states. More than 6,500 accredited angel investors belong to our member angel groups. ACEF and ACA work together to build the skills of angel investors so that they are better mentor capitalists to start-up companies and to increase the number of angels participating in high quality groups in the United States."
 
- Peter Linder

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