Guest columnist: Looking for more than dollar$ - Find the right investor

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. - So you have completed your business plan, determined how much money you need, practiced your presentation, and are now ready to approach angel investors to raise the capital needed to launch your business. But, you don't know any. You have heard about the angel organizations in the area. You have read about the venture capital firms as well. Where do you start looking? Here are some tips to finding angel investors:

FT: Government under fire on venture capital

The government’s record as a venture capital investor will come under fire on Wednesday as research says it has produced disappointing results in creating jobs and boosting profits at the start-up companies it finances.

NOTE: Registration required to read full article on Financial Times.

Biotech Cools Off in August But Capital Markets Remain Positive

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Just as biotech was "hot" in July it was a different story in August as the Burrill Biotech Select Index suffered from the summer "blahs" and posted a lackluster performance to close down 1.1 percent. The broader markets, on the other hand, continued their upward swing with the Dow closing the month up a healthy 3.5 percent and the Nasdaq closing up 1.5 percent.

Real World, Green Innovation for Corporate America: Harvard’s five steps

This month’s Harvard Business Review (HBR) has many folks in the corporate community asking questions and talking about the new business opportunities around sustainability. The September issue features a range of articles covering new green technology, sustainability as a business innovation driver and new energy sources for business.

WSJ: Facebook's Rev Program Gives Start-Ups Deeper Connections

For the 20 start-ups that participated in Facebook's just-ended summer incubator program, called "Rev," the benefits are obvious -- learn the tricks of the trade from the brains behind the Web's largest social network and get advice from top Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and investors.

Govt and angel fund team up for tech sector

A new investment partnership is looking to invest up to $8 million developing technology ventures emerging from life sciences, engineering and information and communication technology research.

The partnership is between government-supported fund manager New Zealand Venture Investment Fund (NZVIF) and angel investment network AngelLink.

The Future of Innovation-Based Economic Development

Given by Bendis: (Click image to download PDF version)

BW: Does the US Face an Innovation Crisis?

Ever since the late 1950s the United States has suffered bouts of insecurity about its innovation lead. The Russians in space. The Japanese in industry after Industry. And now the Indians and Chinese. The latest flurry of worries was clearly brought on by a combination of the dot-com bust and the acceleration of outsourcing. It has blossomed into a full-blown anxiety attack with the global recession and the clear signal that a lot of the most obvious US innovation in the first eight years of this decade was so-called financial innovation—which brought disastrous results. Now the calls for action are louder, including this package we at BusinessWeek put together in the last issue.

Debate Swirls Around SBIR Program

When Congress returns next week, reauthorizing the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant program will be one of the many decisions policymakers need to address. BioWorld Today explored the VC loophole in a story today (“Squabbling Over VC Loophole Leaves SBIR Program in Limbo”). The article fairly presents both sides of the argument regarding whether majority VC-backed firms should have limited eligibility for the program.

Hope Is Not A Strategy for Venture Capital

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, VC was viewed as a small, exotic and risky opportunity. During the tech boom of the late 1990s, VC was widely viewed as a surefire ticket to riches. Now, two stock-market crashes later, many investors are concerned about the anemic returns they have received from their VC investments over the past 10 years – Venture’s Lost Decade. Is venture capital likely to continue its recent record of underperformance?

5 milestones to reach before raising venture capital

I meet lots of web entrepreneurs who tell me they want to raise venture capital. Most of these people are first time entrepreneurs and they just assume that once they’ve got an idea, the next thing to do is raise venture capital. That’s naive.

NYT: Venture Firm’s ‘Green’ Funds Top $1 Billion

MENLO PARK, Calif. — Vinod Khosla, the prominent venture capitalist who has been investing hundreds of millions of his own dollars in green technology companies for the last several years, will now invest other people’s money, too.

Entrepreneurs Prefer In-person and Online Seminars Over Degree ...

New York, NY (Vocus/PRWEB ) September 1, 2009 -- New research finds that small business owners learn in many different ways, but they have a strong preference for seminars over undergraduate business and MBA university courses. Use and Value of Resources by Small Business Owners and Nonprofit Leaders: A Survey Conducted by Ventureneer. a soon to be report, also finds that going online is a popular way of taking seminars.

Skoll Foundation Invests in Leading Social Entrepreneurs

PALO ALTO, Calif., Sept. 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Skoll Foundation announced today second round investments in fifteen social entrepreneurs in its portfolio driving large-scale impact worldwide. In addition, the Foundation announced the first Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship in its 2010 round, a $765,000 grant to Civic Ventures, plus investments in two key partners who promote social entrepreneurship and social innovation, Ashoka and ShoreCap II. In aggregate, the new grants and program-related investments total $14,165,000.

Exploring Innovation Clusters

The OECD has a new publication exploring the challenges OECD countries now face in sustaining their positions and the lessons for other places seeking to build successful clusters. Titled “Clusters, Innovation and Entrepreneurship”, the book addresses the following questions: What are the key factors for cluster success? What problems are emerging on the horizon? Which is the appropriate role of the public sector in supporting the expansion of clusters and overcoming the obstacles?

The Irish Economy: Blog Archive: Draft submission to Innovation

The Innovation Task Force was appointed to advise the government on how to turn Ireland into an international innovation hub and to support the development of a smart economy. It’s easy to be cynical but better to be constructive. The ITF has issued a call for submissions on its terms of references:

Chinese Gov't pledges strong support for innovation-based SMEs during downturn

BEIJING, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Science and Technology Minister Wan Gang said Monday China's government would provide strong support for small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to help them tide over the current economic downturn.

"The most effective way to withstand the impact of the global economic meltdown is to accelerate technological innovation, the new economic growth engine," Wan said in a signed article on the front page of Monday's Study Times, run by the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.

Dividing equity between founders

A friend asked me recently if I knew of any good guidelines for dividing up equity between founders, and specifically what to do in the case when a co-founder provides seed capital.

NYT: Op-Ed Contributors Stopping Start-Ups

VARIOUS pieces of legislation now making their way through Congress would require private pools of investment capital to be registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The goal is to curtail abuses and protect the public from questionable practices. The proposed laws would cover the range of funds that deal in derivatives, auction-rate and mortgage-backed securities, highly leveraged transactions and a slew of other instruments so complicated as to defy description.

Connecting the Developing World | RESON

The GSMA reports that there are well over 4 billion cell phone subscriptions worldwide. Over 50% of the world’s population has a cell phone now. Think for a moment about your cell phone: what it means and how you use it. Would you miss it if it were lost? I rely on my cell phone which I use as a phone, calculator, alarm clock, weather person, calendar, and research tool. I write notes to myself, notes to others, track my finances, schedule meetings and organize my time. I program my phone which, in return, programs my life.