Harvard University has partnered with several venture capital firms to launch The Experiment Fund.  The Experiment Fund is starting with $10 million and was co-founded by Harvard alumni Patrick Chung (New Enterprise Associates) and Hugo Van Vuuren.  Accel Partners and Polaris Ventures is also associated with The Experiment Fund.

Two of the world’s most prolific technology entrepreneurs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, are known for being Harvard University dropouts.  Why did they drop out?  Possibly due to lack of resources at the University.  Mark Zuckerberg moved to Silicon Valley from Harvard University to raise VC funding for Facebook in May 2004 and never looked back.

Maryland entrepreneurs are getting the chance to bring their small business plans directly to a panel of angel investors who could bring those ideas to life.

“The one thing we want to do is bring your story back with us,” said Mike Binko, founder and co-chair of Startup Maryland. “We want to put a big spotlight and a big megaphone in your hands to tell your story in your words.”

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There will be much debate about the future of venture capital at TechCrunch's Disrupt conference this week. I know VC funds of tomorrow will perform the same tasks as the venture funds of today: help portfolio companies, evaluate new investment opportunities and build networks of other investors, potential hires, and founders.

But to succeed over the next 25 years, venture capital firms must increase the scale and sophistication of each of these duties by order of magnitude through technology. In the five years I’ve worked in the venture business, I have witnessed tremendous change in the industry driven by intensifying competition for returns.

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Once again, Pennsylvania's Innovation Partnership (IPart) has scored funding in a challenging environment, in order to "assure Pennsylvania's small technology companies that its programs will continue to assist them in generating winning, fundable federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) proposals."

Software/Web innovation has their model nailed. The wham-bam-thank-you-Y-Combinator process combined with caffeine and electrons rapidly ramps companies, creates whole new sets of things consumers never knew they needed (but now simply can’t live without), and delivers market index +3 returns to LPs who continue pouring money into the space. It took a market crash and 15 years to get there, but hats off, it works. Software creates money.

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NY Times writes about the next big category of cloud software being business valuation software and mentions BizEquity as a leader .

By Scott Gabehart, Certified Business Appraiser and Vice-President of Valuation Support and Services for BizEquity

The recent article by Mark Cohen in the New York Times titled “Do You Know What Your Business is Worth?  You Should” contained a number of relevant insights related to the valuation of privately-held companies – including the “commanding” title itself.  Interestingly, the first part of this title happens to be our primary tagline at www.bizequity.com.

Singlemost Important Piece of Advice

Cutting to the chase, my analysis led to the conclusion that the primary or singlemost important sentence in the piece was:

“….it helps to have at least a basic understanding of the valuation process.”

The implication was, it seems that many business owners do NOT have a basic understanding of the valuation process.

Enter BizEquity

Pioneered by experienced entrepreneurs and valuation experts alike, there is now a tool available which can help the business owner to “Optimize, Optimize, Optimize” as Mr. Cohen puts it convincingly in his final comments.  Importantly, the employees of BizEquity are devoted to the development and implementation of a comprehensive suite of business valuation methods which will allow the user to generate a credible, reliable and accurate estimate of fair market value on a going concern basis – from the perspective of both an “asset sale” and “stock sale” paradigm.

A major new study has found that new students at Northwestern University learn more when their instructors are adjuncts than when they are tenure-track professors. The study -- released this morning by the National Bureau of Economic Research (abstract available here) -- found that the gains are greatest for the students with the weakest academic preparation. And the study found that the gains extended across a wide range of disciplines. The authors of the study suggest that by looking at measures of student learning, and not just course or program completion, their work may provide a significant advance in understanding the impact of non-tenure-track instructors.

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UNLIKE CHRONIC PLANNERS, SPONTANEOUS WORKERS VALUE THE FREEDOM IN THEIR DAYS. BUT IN THE BUSINESS WORLD, SOME SEMBLANCE OF STRUCTURE NEEDS TO BE MAINTAINED FOR A GOOD (AND TIMELY) PRODUCT. SO WHICH ONE ARE YOU? 

I’m a planner. I schedule tasks for exact times--work on this article at 10 a.m. on Thursday, August 22--and come what may, I stick to the plan. I hate “playing things by ear” and seeing how I feel in the moment. I know how I’m going to feel in the moment: angsty, because I don’t have a plan.

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Look out for mass-produced invisibility cloaks thanks to an entirely new way of designing and manufacturing them out of materials such as Teflon

When it comes to invisibility cloaks, one of the trickiest problems is how to make the things.

The materials of choice are known as metamaterials which are created by assembling a repeating pattern of structures that interact with the light they are designed to cloak. This kind of detailed assembly means that making metamaterials is an expensive and time-consuming process. What’s more, the resulting invisibility cloaks are never perfect.

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Scientists at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology in Vienna, Austria, have grown three-dimensional human brain tissues from stem cells. The tissues form discrete structures that are seen in the developing brain.

The Vienna researchers found that immature brain cells derived from stem cells self-organize into brain-like tissues in the right culture conditions. The “cerebral organoids,” as the researchers call them, grew to about four millimeters in size and could survive as long as 10 months. For decades, scientists have been able to take cells from animals including humans and grow them in a petri dish, but for the most part this has been done in two dimensions, with the cells grown in a thin layer in petri dishes. But in recent years, researchers have advanced tissue culture techniques so that three-dimensional brain tissue can grow in the lab. The new report from the Austrian team demonstrates that allowing immature brain cells to self-organize yields some of the largest and most complex lab-grown brain tissue, with distinct subregions and signs of functional neurons.

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The United Nations just released its second World Happiness Report, which ranks countries according to happiness levels. Nordic countries are at the top this year, while the U.S., Egypt, and Greece are (surprise!) all more disgruntled than they were in years past.

Economic output is a crude measure of national success. It accounts for negative transactions (like sales of handguns) as much as positive things (like education spending). Rich people do tend to be happier. But the same isn't true for countries: the U.S., for example, has become richer without improving well-being overall.

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Target has joined one of the growing trends in healthcare: innovation challenges. It announced on Monday two contests: one will seek a solution that helps people make positive lifestyle and prevention choices, while the other will gather ways to help people live well with a chronic condition.

The Target Simplicity Challenge will reward the creators of the winning ideas $25,000 apiece, their own Target-branded flip camera, and a chance to partner with Target to develop the concepts. The deadline for ideas is Oct. 24 and winners will be announced by January.

Branding is often seen as a fluffy subject. It’s de-prioritized because it is neither tangible, nor easily measurable and belongs more to the creative types than left-brain entrepreneurs. But dismissing the importance of branding is a big mistake, especially for consumer facing companies. Branding is critical to the success of any business, both externally and internally and creating a solid brand platform will make it easier to execute all your other tasks with clarity.

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This month's video feature is a data visualization of the U.S. Population Growth Over Time. The infographic animation displays the growth over time from the first census in 1790 through 2013, showing territories (with the current state borders) in green until statehood (blue); also note the little flash of grey across the south around, say, the 1860’s and the subsequent split of a state. Without flashing full numbers, the size of the abbreviation is proportionate to the state population and the lighter the color the higher the percentage of the national population.

Watch the Video

The Abell Foundation underwrote a comparison of Baltimore’s innovation ecosystem with that of Boston. Sean Pool and Matt Van Itallie, of Canterbury Road Partners, undertook the work and their report is telling of the challenges in front of us, but also reveals great promise of the resources we already have and what Baltimore’s innovation ecosystem can become. The full report can be found on the Abell Foundation website.

Corporates and individuals who have been wanting to make meaningful contribution towards solving social issues now have a new platform in Social Venture Partners. Recently SVP India started its Pune Chapter.

Social Venture Partners India (SVP India) founded in May, 2012 in Bangalore brings together influential leaders committed to solving complex social issues through personal philanthropy, advocacy and capacity building.

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The number of startups with women founders getting venture money is growing but remains comparatively small, according to a report this week from Pitchbook, the Silicon Valley Business Journal reported. The trend appears headed in the right direction, with the percentage of female-founded companies with VC backing jumping from just 4 percent in 2004 to about 13 percent in the first six months of this year.

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Time: the most precious commodity of all. Especially to the entrepreneur, who is always looking to do more in the time he or she has (more research, more planning, more building, more testing, more thinking, more selling…).

If, at the beginning of the school year, I may presume to offer one piece of advice to our amazing, talented, and entrepreneurial students, it is this: spend your time wisely. You could argue that this holds true for all students, even all people, but I think it is critically important to those with entrepreneurial ambitions. Whether your focus is to start a business while in school, get involved with early stage companies, or simply dip your toe in the water by taking a few classes and attending some lectures or workshops, time is the key. All of these paths take dedicated focus and attention, and your limited time on campus can easily pass—and you could miss one of the best times of your life to engage in entrepreneurial activities.

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The National Angel Capital Organization ("NACO") announced today the release of its 2012 Report on Angel Investing Activity in Canada. The report focuses on the activities of NACO member Angel groups - the visible portion of Canada's Angel market. "We are proud to be able to shine light on an asset class that acts as the backbone of Canadian entrepreneurs. The conclusions and analysis of this report will lead to sharing of best practices among NACO members, supporting increased returns for Angels, and increased benefits for Canada," said NACO Chair, Michelle Scarborough.

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The debate about whether patent firms help or hurt start-ups and small companies tends to go like this.

On the one hand, the cost of defending even one flimsy lawsuit against a patent firm — companies that buy up patents solely to press for licensing deals or payouts in court – can cripple a start-up.

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