Angel Investment Network has reported a positive trend despite the recent shakeups in the global markets with trends that are starting to counter this. And in the midst of this, more business people than ever before seem to be taking the leap from employee to entrepreneur. The pressure of market fluctuations is producing diamonds in the most unlikely places, and more and more people are turning to angel investors to help their business grow.

These changes in the market place also seem to have transformed in the manner in which business is being funded, leading to an upswing in the amount of venture capital investment this quarter. This is following along the trend that Angel Investment Network has seen over the past year, with a continuous increase in the number of business investment deals quarter on quarter. Over the last year we have seen the number of venture capital deals increase significantly as well as the value of these deals.

After spending the early part of my career in the mid- to high-end of the Canadian private-equity market, it became apparent to me that the venture capital market was underserved, attracting limited interest among institutional investors.

In January, we launched Klass Capital, one of Canada’s first micro venture capital funds focused on software companies. Our goal is to invest $1-million to $3-million per deal, deploying $20-million to $30-million of capital over a three-year period.

China's tax office is considering a plan to offer more tax incentives to venture capital companies when they invest in local small-and-medium enterprises, the China Securities Journal reported on Thursday, citing unnamed sources.

Venture capital firms already enjoy tax deductions of 70 percent of their investments when they put money in unlisted small-and-medium scale high tech firms, but the State Administration of Taxation (SAT) is considering widening the criteria to include investments for non-tech companies, the paper said.

While it’s fashionable to focus on data, one has to remember that what matters is what you can do with the data and how it can help grow a business. That is the rallying cry in the web world from Twitter to Facebook but also in an unexpected place: a Seattle hospital.

Ted Corbett, the director of knowledge management at Seattle Children’s Hospital, is using software from a company called Tableau to draw smart inferences from the 10 terabytes of data locked up in his servers and warehousing appliances. The hospital, which employs 5,000 people, uses the visualizations and easy access to data hidden away in multiple places to cut down on waste, reduce errors in medicine and help plan clinical trials. As organizations seek to store, analyze and derive insights from their data, companies are creating software to help them make sense of it all — because it’s not how big the data is, but what you can do with it.

Ever since Blueprint Ventures’ partners decided in 2009 to wind the firm down, New Venture Partners may be the only venture firm left that invests solely in corporate spinouts—technology projects that are locked inside a company that the company no longer wants, even if it’s already invested millions of dollars in them.

Identifying these projects and turning them into independent start-ups is time-consuming. New Venture Partner David Tennenhouse, a Ph.D. in computing who’s worked at DARPA, Intel Corp. and Amazon.com Inc. and who opened the firm’s Silicon Valley office in 2007, says he talks to a lot of people — corporate chief technology officers, directors of research and sometimes business development and mergers and acquisitions people, figuring that “when a project is in imminent danger of being cancelled, hopefully the leader will go to the doorsteps of these people looking for salvation.”

It doesn't matter if you call it a boom or a bubble. The startup business moves in cycles, and what goes up will eventually come down. We're in summer. One easy way to tell: notice all the startup experts and prophets that have sprung up in the last two years (myself included). Notice how many of them made their money during a previous boom. George R. R. Martin would call them summer's children.

Summer will end. When, how much, and why - I don't know. These are questions for financial analysts and investors, people with their ears (and attention) much lower to the market-ground than entrepreneurs can afford. But the signs of winter are all around us: persistently high unemployment, market shocks, ill-timed austerity measures. For a while, startupland can stay insulated from these broader forces, but not indefinitely. The LP's that fund booms are, after all, pension, municipal, and sovereign wealth funds. Consumers need disposable income to invest in the latest products, as do the companies who serve them and advertisers who reach them.

My wife and I have picked out the perfect spouse for my son.  They have developed a wonderful relationship together over the years, with great chemistry and warmth.  She comes from a family that has identical values and priorities to ours and would make wonderful in-laws.

They are both 9 years old.

This example – admittedly absurd (although we still do talk about it!) – got me thinking about the challenge of arranged marriages in the world of entrepreneurship.

Many entrepreneurs come to us and say “I have this great idea, all I need is a technical co-founder” or “I have a killer technology that I’m developing, all I need is a business co-founder.”  They look to us to help make the match in the hopes that they will complete their team and live happily ever after.

Many of our loyal readers have  requested RSS feeds for Innovation DAILY, and I am pleased to announce  you can view InnovationDAILY in your favorite RSS viewer.

We also added a feed for the  "In the News" articles in our newsletter.

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“Innovation” is a scary word when it’s aimed in your direction.  Say you’re looking for ways to improve your business; you know you need to be innovative, but then you immediately flash on an image of Steve Jobs and freeze. The word innovation tends to set a really high mental bar.

But the bar isn’t really that high. Finding new ways to improve your business is relatively easy. Don’t think about being innovative.  Think about something else instead:

Pain.

To be innovative you just need to use what you already know — about your business and about your customers — to eliminate a little mutual pain. Anyone can do it; for example, the owner of a gas station/convenience store near where I live is innovative. (Surprised the words “convenience store”  and “innovative” appear in the same sentence?)

Could everybody just calm down?

Lately it feels like we’re in this self-fulfilling cycle of bad news where one economic data point sets off the tweets, then the 24-hour news channels — desperate to make the economy look like a spectator sport — get all lathered up. The radio talk shows proclaim the end of the world and then the fading newspapers jump in with ever-more sensational headlines and pretty soon, you might think the whole world is coming to an end because unemployment only dropped 0.1% instead of the hoped for 0.2%.

But there is nothing any of us can do about the national unemployment rate, Italy’s debt, the U.S. real estate market, or any of their effects on the stock market.

Over the past few years, BRIC (Brazil-Russia-India-China) has become a buzzword of sorts for technology- and finance-watchers. India is already known for call centers, IT development, and expatriate coders. The country is also home to one of the world's fastest-growing middle classes. Angela Saini, the British author of the new Geek Nation: How Indian Science is Taking Over The World, believes that India is also becoming an innovation center to be reckoned with, and a world leader in tech.

Fast Company recently spoke with Saini about India's tech industry, the growth of Indian startups, and what the future holds for Indian innovators.

The U.S. Department of Energy today released a report – 2011 U.S. Billion-Ton Update: Biomass Supply for a Bioenergy and Bioproducts Industry – detailing U.S. biomass feedstock potential nationwide. The report examines the nation's capacity to produce a billion dry tons of biomass resources annually for energy uses without impacting other vital U.S. farm and forest products, such as food, feed, and fiber crops. The study provides industry, policymakers, and the agricultural community with county-level data and includes analyses of current U.S. feedstock capacity and the potential for growth in crops and agricultural products for clean energy applications. The biomass resources identified in the report could be used to produce clean, renewable biofuels, biopower, or bioproducts. For example, with continued developments in biorefinery capacity and technology, the feedstock resources identified could produce about 85 billion gallons of biofuels – enough to replace approximately 30% of the nation's current petroleum consumption. This data will be used by both the public and private sector to grow the bioenergy industry and help achieve President Obama's goals of dramatically expanding renewable energy resources and developing alternative fuels for America's transportation sector.

Four Montreal companies are among the 10 most promising identified by a group of local investors.

FounderFuel, Montreal's newest startup accelerator, announced Monday it will invest $250,000 in 10 fledgling companies in hopes of boosting their fortunes.

The companies will undergo a 12-week intensive program that begins next Monday. They will be given shared office space, get coached by a network of mentors, and meet potential investors.

The names of the companies and their vocations have not yet been made public, but what is known is that all 10 teams are Canadian. Aside from the Montreal groups, two hail from Waterloo, another two are from Toronto, and one hails from Vancouver.

Slava Rubin, founder and CEO of crowdfunding site IndieGoGo has these tips for inventors looking to seek funding from the Internet crowd:

• Have a personal, engaging video. Donors give more when they see a human explaining why they’re passionate about what they’re trying to accomplish. A good video campaign will earn 122% more than a non-video campaign.
• Set realistic goals. Do the math and figure out exactly what you need and why.

Why does Kickstarter, the micropatronage site, work?

That's the question Rob Walker takes up in a New York Times Magazine feature this weekend. His answer is subtle and smart. Through talks with two of the site's unusual founders, gallerist Perry Chen and music writer Yancey Strickler, we see that successful Kickstarter projects are not as random as they might seem. The founders see a common basis for that success in terms of content, value, and presentation. And it's this rather strict notion of what is and is not a Kickstarter project -- as a mini-genre -- that makes the site work.

"The fact that [founders] Chen and Strickler have a genuine point of view about the forms creativity can take, and how to expand them, is the reason that Kickstarter is the breakout star of the crowd-funding notion," Walker writes.

When job candidates are considering a position, they often compare the benefits and perks package. We’ve all heard about the Googleplex and its gourmet food, dry cleaning and Razr scooters made available to Googlers. But you don’t have to be a search giant to offer admirable perks. In fact, it may even be more cost-effective to offer goods and services instead of cold hard cash, since the latter is taxed twice. The key to great perks is to make them exciting and keep them on-brand. Below, you’ll find how six brands — from small startups to larger companies — reward their employees and maintain happy and efficient workers. While they aren’t all tech or digital companies, they all excel in the digital and social media space, and other startups (and large corporations) could learn a thing or two from them.

Managing and motivating a team in a startup is more than just using the right interpersonal skills. It’s more than providing recognition, tangible incentives, and clear work goals. A key influencer of satisfaction and motivation, top-ranked by employees, is positive progress and the completion of meaningful work. Sometimes you have to manage progress, not people.

“Busy work” and “grunt work” are deadly terms in a startup environment. So are setbacks, project cancellations, and frequent changes of direction that make people doubt that the work they are doing will ever see the light of day. These points are illustrated in detail in “The Progress Principle,” a new book from the Harvard Business School, by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer.

Businesses and nonprofits across Nebraska are signing up with a new state effort to get college students working, and then sticking around after graduation.

At least 79 businesses have applied for Intern Nebraska funding, and 45 have been approved, Gov. Dave Heineman said Monday.

One of those companies, said Richard Baier, director of the Department of Economic Development, is Green Bein' Productions Inc., a Lincoln-based online production company that recently launched an online virtual gaming world called Kid Command, which teaches children about the environment.

"For the companies, this is a perfect opportunity to learn about future employees and how good they're going to be," Heineman said.

Now, the state has a website to provide information and internship listings for the college students who qualify -- internNE.com.

One of the major findings in mankind’s history is realizing the value of working together. Without it we would have starved to death about 100 000 years ago because a single man going hunting is very inefficient (I know – I am a hunter). We have also seen a very strong correlation between the amount of innovations happening and the number of people who are interconnected in the society during the course of the years.

If you want your team to think outside the box, you have to create one for them first. Don’t start an innovation project until you’ve clearly articulated the strategic framework for your team. There are many models out there, here’s one of our favorites.

We hear this a lot when we talk executives looking for their next new product idea, “I want an out-of-the-box idea!”

Our first question is always: “What does the box look like?” and it’s usually met with a blank stare.

It may seem obvious, but it’s impossible to “think outside the box” unless you’ve defined the box.