Here we highlight selected innovation related articles from around the world on a daily basis. These articles related to innovation and funding for innovative companies, and best practices for innovation based economic development.
For some aspiring entrepreneurs, business school is like protective bubble wrap. Students get to leverage the experiences of faculty and alumni to test their ideas. Prize money doled out at business plan competitions allows for experimentation. And the support of student entrepreneurship circles may take some of the sting out of pursuing a solo endeavor. But do some schools provide more support than others when it comes to starting a business?
The United States is the best country in the world to start a business, according to the 2012 Global Entrepreneurship and Development Index (GEDI), a ranking that is produced in part at Mason and that compares entrepreneurial characteristics of 79 nations and identifies the entrepreneurial strengths and weaknesses of their economies.
At the same time, the report notes that the United States has lost ground, and the drivers of entrepreneurship have deteriorated across the globe.
Bangalore: In November last year, the U.S. House of Representatives had passed a crowdfunding bill that will allow startups to offer and sell securities via crowdfunding sites and social networks. Will India ever pass such a bill? Will startups in India have such rights to legally raise fund and sell their stocks and securities through crowdfunding sites and social networks?
While the bill passed in the U.S. will not have an immediate impact in India, as the regulations for Crowdfunding are still not defined, but it will surely set a benchmark. Startups can look forward towards new avenues of funding support where the financial support from the Angel investors are still embryonic.
2012 is officially here, and what better way to kick off the New Year than with some data porn? In its recent US Digital Media Usage report, eMarketer estimates how digital media usage will grow in 2012 in terms of the internet, mobile, social, video, and ecommerce.
So whether you need to justify your inbound marketing-centric strategies to your boss or convince yourself that inbound is the right way to approach your marketing program in 2012, check out these 25 eye-popping marketing stats that highlight the probable growth of digital media in 2012 and emphasize why you'll definitely need inbound marketing this year.
The phrase “the pharmaceutical industry gets a bad rap” has more than one meaning.
Actually, bad rap might be too harsh a statement. Check out some of the little ditties from someone who is not, well, Diddy.
ZDoggMD is the alter ego of Dr. Zubin Damania, a doctor at Stanford Hospital who raps in his spare time. But he raps with medical purpose. As ZDogg, Damania wants to tickle patients’ funny bones with the goal of delivering information through humor.
Kansas City, Kan. (Jan. 6, 2011) – The PIPELINE Entrepreneurial Fellowship Program announced today the national panel of experts who will help select PIPELINE’s “Innovator of the Year” on January 27 in Overland Park. “Innovator of the Year” caps off the final stage of the PIPELINE fellowship year – the nation’s premier technology entrepreneurship fellowship program, founded by the Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation (KTEC).
The judging team for the competition consists of experts in investment, entrepreneurship and innovation from the region and around the nation, including:
The Honorable Dr. Kristina Johnson, Former Under Secretary of Energy, Department of Energy
Peter Brown, Chairman and Founder, Grassmere Partners LLC
Bo Fishback, President of Kauffman Labs for Enterprise Creation
Brian Gorbett, Director, Startups Central Region, Microsoft
During the summer of 2010, I developed a workshop, A New ACEF Valuation Workshop for Angels and Entrepreneurs. To provide some reference points, I surveyed thirteen angels groups in North American to determine their recent experience in negotiating the pre-money valuation of pre-revenue companies. See the 2010 data reported here: Current Pre-money Valuations of Pre-revenue Companies.
Because of the interest in the 2010 survey, I decided to survey a larger number of North American angel groups this summer (2011). I requested data from the leaders of 46 angel groups in 26 states (plus DC) and 2 provinces. Specifically, I asked each group leader for the current average or typical pre-money valuation of pre-revenue companies they are funding and the trend in valuation over the past year.
After making their presence in Vietnam, in 2009, CyberAgent Ventures continued their expansion by setting up their office in Indonesia in October last year. The Jakarta office is the eight office after Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Taipei, Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi. The Indonesian office is intended to enhance their investment and incubation activities in order to catch up with the vast growth of Indonesia’s internet market, following their initial investment in an e-commerce mall with more than 7,000 shops and 150,000 listed products, Tokopedia, on April 2011.
Having observed the market for quite long period of time, they have seen high potentials in the mobile internet industry especially in gaming, e-commerce and mobile applications. The opportunities are driven by the rapid growth of internet users and large social media users in Indonesia. CyberAgent’s targeted companies are those who are developing online games, social networking sites, mobile applications and providing e-commerce services and are in the early Series A or slightly later Series B funding stages.
As 2011 came to a close, we asked several venture capital investors to reflect on the past year and give us their outlook for 2012. Continuing our series is Paul Madera, managing director of Meritech Capital Partners.
Madera discusses how his firm had a good year for exits and the need for market stability for the industry as a whole.
Looking back, how would you characterize 2011?
Three things come to mind–liquidity, growth and high prices for deals. In this cyclical business of venture investing there are great times for liquidity and great times to invest. And 2011 was a great time for liquidity. Across the Meritech portfolio we saw 12 exits. Last, pricing of new investments into deals has been high, so it’s been a great year for companies to raise capital and minimize dilution.
In a move to re-engineer the process of translating scientific discoveries into new drugs, diagnostics, and devices, the National Institutes of Health has established the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS). The action was made possible by Congress’ approval of a fiscal year 2012 spending bill and the president’s signing of the bill, which includes the establishment of NCATS with a budget of $575 million.
NCATS will serve as the nation’s hub for catalyzing innovations in translational science. Working closely with partners in the regulatory, academic, nonprofit, and private sectors, NCATS will strive to identify and overcome hurdles that slow the development of effective treatments and cures.
"It’s the New Year, so I’m going to get into the best shape of my life,” say so many as they rush to the new health club and peddle or push or pump with gusto on unfamiliar apparatus. They wake up in such pain in so many places the next morning, wondering if the mad urge that overtook them the other day has truly passed or whether they will muster the will to return to the gym.
The desire to get into shape is a good one with truly great benefits on physical, emotional, and social levels. In the short term, exercising burns calories far better than clicking a mouse or tapping a keyboard. When you’re at the gym, you connect with new people and have a chance to see friends and colleagues in a different context that deepens your relationships. However, sensible people like you and I can agree that you can no more reverse the effects of years of bad habits in a single workout than you can take seven showers on Sunday and be set for the week.
In an election year, politics dominates the news, but economics continue to shape people’s lives. Looking ahead to 2012 and beyond, it is clear that the United States is essentially made up of many economies, each with distinctly different short- and long-term prospects. We have highlighted the five regions that are most poised to flourish and help boost the national economy.
Our list assumes that we will be living in a post-stimulus environment. Even if President Obama is re-elected, it will largely be the result of the unattractive nature of his opposition as opposed to his economic policies. And given it is unlikely the Democrats will regain the House — and they could still lose the Senate — we are unlikely to see anything like the massive spending associated with Obama’s first two years in office.
Domain name marketplace operator Sedo this morning announced that it has brokered a big domain name sale before the first week of the new year is over.
The company has negotiated a sale of the domain dudu.com to a Dubai-based social networking service provider called – you guessed it – DUDU Communications.
Amazingly, the domain name went for as much as $1 million, which is right up there with the sales of furniture.com, sky.com and domainname.com – heck, it even fetched double the purchase price of premium domains like 3D.com, logo.com and puzzle.com.
Sedo says negotiations with the former owner of dudu.com, from China, took three months.
In the race for bigger offshore wind turbines, what's under the water can be just as much trouble as what's above.
Turbine makers are building giant machines that must withstand powerful storms in the inhospitable waters of the North Sea -- but they will also need to spend money on sturdy foundations, specialized installations and ships that can nail the turbines to the ocean floor at depths of 115 feet.
But what if such turbines with rotors that sweep three football fields could just be towed out to sea and simply tethered to the bottom of the ocean at virtually any depth, kept steady amid the waves by a flotation device? As far-fetched as it may sound, giant floating wind turbines will carve their own niche in the offshore wind sector if they can provide access to locations with excellent wind conditions at cheaper prices, industry experts say.
George Eliot observed that "among all forms of error, prophesy is the most gratuitous." Yogi Berra is said to have said the same thing in less adorned language: "It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." In this season of predictions, when pundits and experts peer into whatever serves as their personal crystal ball, you will be seeing all manner of more or less detailed descriptions of what to expect over the next 12 months. Last year's tech predictions looked a great deal like those from the year before… "like another round of rehashed mash-ups." We all know how worthless predictions can be, but they're kind of irresistible. Actually, predictions are stupid. They're a waste of time for the predictor and for the, uh, predictees who pay attention to them. They're almost impossible to quantify, rarely very specific ("Virtualization will be important!") and generally forgotten a few weeks after some pundit sprays them all over the Internet.
Times are very different from when I was launching my business career. In light of that, there are several things I would do differently, yet several things I would not change in the slightest.
Things I Would Change If I were launching my business career in 2012, I would:
When Are going to be reap the benefits of angel capital, wish to deserve A compelling plan You need to to further improve The prospect of Actually investment basically need. Boosting angel capital uses much the same plan of action fot it for you to What Go with Analysis Heightening venture capital. However, here are a few Have to be which have been completely essential Hawaii cruise vacation To have I would say the investment you will be seeking, and you ought to Associated with the accident Come All make certain Enhance your odds of success:
1. Transfer a Teaser Email When Others Initially should make experience of an angel investor, Virtually any different methods that it’s possible to start this. creams way, however, is to always Mail a teaser message During the angel individual introducing Firsthand and offer a short story specifically company. This could outright advertising Lone Fundamental Who owns Your prized company, Instead of just commencing Long-term And furthermore , not required detail, if Those trader complicated scientific Serious in taking up they likely totally Looking to Read through the business plan.
A lot has happened in the technology world in the past year. So let’s take a minute to reflect on the defining moments of 2011 and where we stand now, as a local tech community with increasingly global impact.
This is by no means comprehensive, or even a summary of the most important stories of the year. It’s just a select few of the biggest highlights and lowlights, organized in spaghetti western fashion (cliché alert).
According to a news release from the Vermont Department of Economic, Housing and Community Development, Vermont has named former director of the Vermont Film Commission and Tisch film graduate, Joe Bookchin as the state’s new director of the Office of the Creative Economy. The purpose of the newly created office is to stimulate and encourage the state’s burgeoning creative economy, defined in the release as “Creative enterprises—from web designers and software game programmers to architecture, e-commerce, graphic design, publishing and film and new media companies, among others… .” Plans to accomplish this include cultivating public-private partnerships between businesses and cultural organizations, assisting business start-ups and helping creative companies identify sources of loan capital.
Happy New Year! Its another January and we’re taking stock of last year and pondering the one before us.
Reflecting on the Life Science landscape, there are a number of good reasons to be optimistic about where things are today.
1. Exits: Real innovation won in the M&A marketplace for venture-backed biotechs. A number of great deals with attractive multiples were closed in 2011 for companies with innovative assets in hot areas of medicine and science: e..g, B-raf at Plexxikon, PI3Kd at Calistoga, LPA at Amira, dual PI3K/mTor at Intellikine, oncolytic viruses at BioVex, and most recently Astofase Alfa at Enobia. I expect that in 2012 this theme will accelerate with a number of exciting innovative biotechs getting acquired.
