Financing Forum

InfoTech Acquires the Canadian Financing Forum - Expanding the Banff Venture Forum Brand and Access to Capital for Canadian Technology Entrepreneurs

2010-09-09T12:33:00.000-07:00

Calgary, Alberta - September 7, 2010 - InfoTech, the not-for-profit industry association that developed, organizes and manages the annual Banff Venture Forum, has acquired the annual Canadian Financing Forum as a means to further enhance the access to capital environment for technology entrepreneurs while building on the current Banff Venture Forum brand.
An essential element of the Banff Venture Forum mission is to deliver world class educational events that provide formal training to entrepreneurs, through boot camps, and informal training to both entrepreneurs and investors through the Banff Venture Forum?s panel and speaker content. The addition of the Canadian Financing Forum to the Banff Venture Forum family is synergistic and will assist in improving the opportunities for early and growth stage technology companies to better access investment financing.

"InfoTech looks forward to adding the Canadian Financing Forum to the Banff Venture Forum program of events" says InfoTech Chairman Don Kjosness. "We welcome the opportunity to build on the stellar event that Kathy and her team have established over the past 14 years, to further enhance the access to capital environment for early stage technology entrepreneurs." Kjosness added: "This reinforces our commitment to improving access to capital for innovative technology companies in Western Canada while supporting the continued national focus on the Banff Venture Forum."

Previous Canadian Financing Forum owner, Kathy Standeven, expressed her excitement surrounding the recent acquisition. "I am very pleased to pass on the Canadian Financing Forum to the extremely capable InfoTech Board and their event organizer, Marc Elrick of Critical Path Group" said Standeven. "I know that they will continue to offer a marquee event to investors and promising technology companies alike, and I look forward to watching the Forum continue to grow and meet the investment needs of the technology sectors in the future."

Standeven expressed sincere gratitude to the community of Vancouver, in particular to the Forum's numerous long standing and loyal sponsors, business partners and venture capital members throughout Canada and the U. S. "I thank you again for the opportunity, along with Dave Thomas, Forum manager for the past seven years and the creative force behind the Forum's success, to support investment activity in Canada" says Standeven.

"Over the past 14 years, the Canadian Financing Forum has established a strong following in the Pacific Northwest and across Canada," says Kjosness, "and on behalf of InfoTech, I would like to thank Kathy and Dave for their commitment to both the Forum and the Canadian entrepreneurial community."

A formal announcement of the acquisition will be made at the Banff Venture Forum 2010, September 23 and 24, 2010 at the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel.

Insights from Silicon Valley

2010-03-16T12:11:00.000-07:00

Insights from the Silicon Valley - Speaker Series #1 - Building Revenue and Market Mindshare from the Ground Up - Clint Chao of Formative Ventures

An informal presentation on start-up revenue and market positioning strategies from the perspective of a Silicon Valley early-stage VC and former startup sales and marketing executive.

Brought to you by the Trade Commissioner Service and Bootup Entrepreneurial Society
Supported by BCIC, BCTIA NRC-IRAP

Monday, March 22: 1:30-3:30
163 West Hastings St. Suite 200 (buzz #200)
Snacks and refreshments will be served

This event is intended for technology companies and local venture capital and angel investors.

Registration:http://sv-insights.eventbrite.com

Clint Chao is a founding general partner at Formative Ventures. Clint invests in emerging technologies start-ups in areas, most recently focusing on web infrastructure and services. Clint is an experienced technology executive who brings more than 20 years of start-up operating experience including marketing, sales and business development to Formative Ventures. His investments and board leadership include Mashery, Marketocracy, Silicon Clocks, Smalltown, SOASTA, and Zyray Wireless (acquired by Broadcom in 2004).

Prior to co-founding Formative Ventures, Clint served as vice president of marketing, sales, and business development at SkyStream Networks (acquired by Tandberg TV), a leading provider of video routing equipment. Under his leadership, SkyStream formed partnerships with industry leaders such as AOL Time Warner, HP, Microsoft, RealNetworks, Lucent Technologies, Mitsubishi, and Philips.

Prior to joining SkyStream, Clint served as senior director of marketing at C-Cube Microsystems where he was responsible for marketing for the PC Division, a group he co-founded and grew to run rates exceeding $50M in sales annually. Clint began his tenure at C-Cube as the first salesperson for the company, where he created the company’s sales representation network around the country.

Before joining C-Cube in 1990, Clint held numerous sales and sales management positions at Motorola Semiconductor, where he was recognized as one of the company’s top salespeople.

Formative Ventures is a leading early-stage venture capital firm that invests in the industry's next-generation emerging technologies leaders in areas such as communications, wireless, and next-generation Internet solutions. The founders of Formative Ventures believe that in today's tough environment, technology start-ups are looking for investors with “real-world” start-up experience, and in very specific areas such as sales and marketing processes, scaling an organization for revenue, or launching a product line. That’s why they each have more than 20 years of "in the trenches" operational experience to complement their investment track records.

Formative's general partners were key contributors during the formative, early revenue stages of market leading companies such as C-Cube Microsystems, Qualcomm, LSI Logic and Synopsys, where they were instrumental in leading their respective companies towards achieving major business, sales and marketing milestones. As a result, FV’s general partners provide a very unique perspective in advising entrepreneurs on how to make the "life changing" decisions regarding their start-up businesses. Recent investment successes by the firm include Zyray Wireless (acquired by Broadcom), IP Infusion (acquired by Access Corporation) and InnoCOMM Wireless (acquired by National Semiconductor).

Insights from the Silicon Valley is an initiative of the Trade Commissioner Service and is BC partners that brings up speakers from the Silicon Valley on a quarterly basis. We are open to topic and speaker suggestions.

--
Clint Chao
General Partner
Formative Ventures
email: clint@formative.com
twitter: http://twitter.com/clintchao
650-461-8008

B.C.'s Cloud Computing Sector is Thriving

2010-02-24T07:17:00.000-08:00

Cloud computing is here and it is real. It is helping businesses lower costs and be more agile. It is allowing startups to lower their setup costs and large enterprises to do R&D faster. It is being used by companies in financial services, pharmaceuticals and life sciences, media, and many others. And B.C. is developing a rich ecosystem of cloud computing companies that you may not know about yet.

For those unfamiliar with the term, cloud computing is the name given to the IT industry's shift towards delivering IT as services. This is only another phase-shift, one of many that the computer industry has already experienced. Using mainframes as a starting point (which offered computing at the "center"), we then moved to minis, then PCs (computing at the edge), then client/server (computing moved back to the center), then the web (computing at both ends), server virtualization (abstracting the applications and software from the hardware underneath), and now automation and self-service.

So where are the opportunities?

With every major phase shift, a lot of things need to be rebuilt. When the industry moved to server virtualization, all of the major infrastructure tools had to be rebuilt. Out of that chaos, VMWare came from nowhere and gained 80% marketshare against its closest competitor Microsoft. And many small companies were born and did great things. That opportunity is now ahead of us again as all of the industry ecosystem is refactored once again. What is up for grabs? Everything: storage, computing, management, billing systems, security, cross-cloud management tools, SOA tools, databases and analytics systems, testing tools and deployment tools. It's a complete ten year rebuild, just like the last cycle. Some stuff will move forward untouched but much of it has to be refactored.

How do you learn more?

With such major transitions, there are a lot of questions. Is this next wave safe? Can I trust my data in the cloud? Why would I give up the server under my desk or in the server room? What is harder? What is easier? How do I separate the noise from the signal? Which vendors will win...and which will fail? Can I really trust Google or Salesforce or Microsoft to own and manage all of my infrastructure? How will I move from Private to Public? Is public computing really public? Is private cloud really cloud?

No matter who you are: an established business owner/manager running a company, a startup team building new products, a CIO, a systems administrator, or a developer, I'd like to invite you to Vancouver's first Cloud Camp, which will be held on March 13, 2010 at Discovery Park.

The event is free and includes coffee and lunch. It runs from 9am-4pm and we will mostly likely gather an informal group together to go for drinks and food somewhere downtown in the evening for those interested in continuing the conversation. Please come with your questions, your concerns, and your ideas. We look forward to seeing you there. http://www.cloudcamp.org/vancouver.

Date: March 13, 2010, from 9:00am to 4:00pm (with a voluntary ad-hoc social event and drinks afterwards at a location TBA).

Location: Discovery Park, 887 Great Northern Way, Vancouver, BC

Contact Details: Troy Angrignon, Cloud Camp Vancouver Co-Chair, troy@troyangrignon.com, Office: 604-551-8275

Website: www.cloudcamp.org/vancouver

Organizing Committee: Troy Angrignon, Jenny Yang (Stealth cloud co.), Trevor Orsztynowicz (LayerBoom)

Exit Strategies Workshop in Vancouver

2010-01-31T13:14:00.000-08:00

Investors and Entrepreneurs need an exit strategy for their investment.

Exit Strategies workshop for Investors, Entrepreneurs & Advisors - March 29 - Vancouver
Ask yourself:

1 What is my exit strategy and why do I need one before or after I invest or look for investors?
2 What type of investor or company best matches my exit strategy and capital/investment requirements?
3 What are the four major steps I should be taking now to plan for a successful exit?
4 What about the timeline, valuation and legal process?

Why not learn from many of the best local experts on exits, including: Basil Peters, Axel Christiansen, Steven Lukas, Thane Stenner and others to be announced.

Learn and network at this annual Exit Strategies workshop on March 29 in downtown Vancouver - click here for full details and registration.

This practical real world workshop will benefit a fellow entrepreneur, so please forward this email.

First 20 seats are $285 (savings of $50 on the final cost). Don't delay - last workshop sold out and the next one may not be until 2011.

To directly register click here (fill in your contact info, click "Submit," then choose the 'Exit Strategies workshop' link.)

We think that you will find this valuable and I hope to see you there.

Awards

2010-01-29T07:07:00.000-08:00

Canadian Financing Forum Names Award Winning Companies

~Four Companies Take Home Awards at the 13^th Annual Event ~

January 29, 2010 - Vancouver, BC: Winners from the 13^th annual Canadian Financing Forum, which took place in Vancouver this week, were formally announced today. The Financing Forum features presentations from the best and most promising private technology companies in Canada, with 30 technology companies competing for attention from over 70 top tier investors from across Canada and the United States.

"Every year we have close to 80 companies wanting to present so the companies have to be high quality to even get on stage," says Dave Thomas of CanadaIT. "Demand is high to present, since the companies know participation at the Forum brings results, both in terms of money and as importantly, market exposure to the investment community."

Each of the carefully selected entrepreneurs had 15 minutes to pitch their company and product to the delegates. As in previous years, the show selected winners based on feedback from the attendees and a panel of judges within the following categories outlined below. This year's winners were as follows:

Forum Favourite Award for Best Company - Cleantech & Advanced Technology:
NxtGen Emission Controls (see http://www.nxtgen.com/)

Forum Favourite Award for Best Company - Information Technology:
Hatsize Corp (see http://www.hatsize.com

Best Early Stage Company - Cleantech & Advanced Technology
Etalim Inc. (see http://www.etalim.com/)

Best Early Stage Company - Information Technology
Advanced E-Commerce Research Systems (see http://www.researchadvanced.com/)

Best ‘First Look Room’ Company
Mingleverse (see http://mingleverse.com/)

"This audience represented many billions of investment capital and the market is much more active than last year," says Kathy Standeven of CanadaIT, the event organizer. "It may not be a cash prize, but these Financing Forum awards are gold to companies prospecting for investment dollars in a competitive investment market. Awards winners in previous years raised as much as $60 million in new financing. We look forward to seeing their progress when we see them again at our next event in 2011."

Keynote Luncheon Panel

2010-01-28T13:48:00.000-08:00

Convergence of Information Technology and Cleantech - "Smart Grid and Energy efficiency Initiatives"

Speakers:
Dean Rockwell, Innovation Council BC (moderator)
Carl Imhoff, Battelle National Laboratory
Drew Clark, IBM Venture Capital Group
John Haylock, Tantalus Systems

"Big untapped opportunity is ancillary services." Carl Imhoff
"Incentives drive better alignment between policy and technology." Drew Clark
"Still in an early market, so even though highly standardized industry, there is uncertainty around standards." John Haylock
"... there is need for better marketing on value of smart grid for the consumer." Drew Clark
"Consumer knows exact cost of gasoline, but probably doesn't know cost of electricity." John Haylock
"Consumer engagement is key to getting the value out of this technology." Carl Imhoff
"... in home display reduced consumption by 7 to 10%." John Haylock

Networking

2010-01-28T11:59:00.000-08:00

Lots of networking going on in the hallway and in the coffee room.

Morning Presentations

2010-01-28T10:17:00.001-08:00

Lots of great company presentations this morning. Pictured above is Graham Carter of Axia Software.

Opening Remarks

2010-01-28T09:59:00.000-08:00

John Webster (PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP) and Valerie Mann (Lawson Lundell LLP) opened the show the "meet the investors" panels. If you are commenting on Twitter, please use the #finforum hashtag so your comments stream to the blog.

Welcome to the Financing Forum

2010-01-28T09:55:00.000-08:00

Lovely Vancouver day at the Hyatt for this year's Financing Forum ... the Olympic banners about "Support Team Canada" could equally apply to the presenting companies.