nuance intelligence

While I more fully organize my thoughts from the overwhelmsion of the energy of 1,200 buzzing brains at last week’s Social Capital Markets Conference (SOCAP), I came across my photos of the topics from what many people find to be the most interesting day of the conference, Day 3.

After two days of an over-stuffed, mind-numbing agenda full of heady topics and full-tilt hobnobbing, roughly a third of the group returns for a day with the agenda collectively created by the participants.  This process, called Open Space, was expertly facilitated by Jerry Michalski, and the session draws out the topics people want to discuss.  From tightly huddled six-person intensives to ranging 40-person explorations, the day exemplifies the open source spirit of the community, a yin to the bustling yang of the previous 48 hours.  The next three photos are images of the wall of topics that got discussed.  Since each person had already presented their idea by standing up on a stage and speaking to the topic for something like 45 seconds, you’ll just get a snapshot of each discussion.  For the full benefit, well, you had to be there.  Nonetheless, this should provide a peek into what’s on the mind of the most collaborative third of the thought leaders at the edge of impact investing.

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Tonight, the Angel Capital Summit finished the first of three review cycles for the largest annual angel investing conference between New York and San Francisco.  We’ll save the deeper analysis for later, but here is some aggregate data on the ~70 companies that reached the semi-finals, from the 190+ which applied to one of 30 partner groups: Continue reading

Just posted over at the Business Catapult Blog:

It’s no secret that IPOs have been at a near-standstill for the past few years.  In addition to the growing financial crisis and general gloom, the unintended consequences of the demands for more financial regulation in the wake of Enron, WorldCom and other related advantage-taking in the 90s has been a horrific hurdle to companies that want to raise equity on the open markets.

…

As attention shifts in the next administration to fostering the development of more green technologies, a healthy IPO market will be even more critical to inspiring innovation. It should also be noted that the necessary funding and interest in technology based IPOs will have a positive, derivative impact on interest in math and science education in the US, an area in which our deficit is widely acknowledged. While “DEregulation” is typically favored by pro-business constituents, given the severity of the crisis we must pursue short term “REregulation” of this important part of our economy, similar to that seen recently by the banking industry

Lots of tasty links, quotes and data to fill in the gap.

My latest column just ran at Colorado Biz magazine.  It investigates alt.energy investments at any level, from the WalMart shopper to President Obama.   Here’s an excerpt:

Angel-level investing
If you are a bona-fide angel investor, looking to cash in on clean-tech, there are two places where an investment of a couple hundred thousand dollars will actually create a reasonable return in a reasonable amount of time. Service companies are focused in two areas, distributed generation and energy efficiency or conservation.
Average cost: Investments in smaller companies are generally made in no less than $25,000 increments.
Expected return: In a recent study by the Kauffman Foundation, angel capital investments returned 2.6 times the initial investment over 3.5 years, for a 27 percent internal rate of return. Of course, performance here varies heavily, and 52 percent of investors in the survey received less than 100 percent of their money back.

VC-level investing
If you are a venture capitalist with a $100 million fund, you can start to look into the actual technology of the energy revolution. Thin-film solar, new battery technology, improved wind turbines and many other technologies are not quite ready for prime-time, but offer a huge upside if they hit.
Average cost: Expensive, with investment rounds averaging 10 times greater than parallel IT investments. An investment round may be $25 million to $100 million
Expected return: Very few clean-tech investment exits have happened thus far, and the investment horizon could be 10 years or longer. But the long-term potential is incredible.

More opportunities identified over at Colorado Biz.

If there were any doubt, a recent piece in the Financial Times leaked a report (free reg req’d) from the International Energy Agency which says that global oil production is already decreasing.

I wrote about this over at the Business Catapult blog.

Dylan said it best,

the first one now will later be last

the present now will late be past

the order is rapidly changing…

As part of our work in building a unique community that focuses on intelligent matching of entrepreneurs and investors, we have launched the Business Catapult blog.

Focused on the education of angel investors, and to a lesser extent, the provocation of venture capitalists, we break the blog down into three channels:

• 101: Investing Basics, including valuations, investment criteria and news and reports about investing trends.
• 201: Advanced Strategies, including managing an investment portfolio, advanced risk assessment and related issues.
• 301: Notes From The Cutting Edge, including investing in sustainability, clean-tech and emerging energy companies, venture philanthropy, disruptive technology and new investing memetics.

Thanks for taking a look, lots of smart stuff coming down the line over there.

We went live today.  It’s an exciting milestone.

Today we whisper.  Tomorrow we shout.