Tag: angel capital

Pollenizer's Mick Liubinskas, Anthill's man on the ground at this week's TechCrunch50 conference in San Francisco, has been wandering around with his trusty video camera hunting down Aussie startup entrepreneurs to interview for you. In this first video, he interviews Green Lane Digital, the team behind iPitch, an online platform matching companies and investors. Below, Liubinskas catches up with another regular contributor, spellr.us founder Kevin Garber.

In part five of our series on the capital raising cultures in Australia and the US, San Francisco-based Steve Anderson explores how Australian entrepreneurs can best prepare for securing US venture capital.

Ari Gold, the fast-talking fictional Hollywood agent in the hit TV show Entourage, may not be known for his sensitivity nor subtlety. But no one would accuse him of being naive when it comes to business.

Ari Gold, the fast-talking fictional Hollywood agent in the hit TV show Entourage, may not be known for his sensitivity nor subtlety. But no one would accuse him of being naive when it comes to business.

While most new technology developers will spend months chasing down angel investors and cold calling VCs, often with the randomness of a headless chook, without too much planning or forethought (much to the potential investor's frustration), sometimes the safest money is already right under their noses. It's called 'strategic capital' or 'smart money' (or a mix of the two).

In part four of our series on the capital raising cultures in Australia and the US, San Francisco-based Steve Anderson explores how Australian and New Zealand entrepreneurs can best prepare for securing local investors.

It says much about the schismatic nature of Australia's economic strategy that the Federal Government invited public submissions on how to build a clever country in the same week that it signed a $50B gas export contract with China. Jordan Green outlines his vision for Australia's knowledge economy.

In further evidence that there is investment capital available for innovative Australian companies in this bear economy, Adelaide-based seed investor Playford Capital succeeded in generating more than $12 million in innovation investment during the 2008-09 financial year.

In part three of our series on the capital raising cultures in Australia and the US, San Francisco-based Steve Anderson explores the five things Australian and US venture capitalist must see before they will invest in an early-stage company.

A little over one week ago, the Federal Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Senator Kim Carr, issued a call for public comment to help inform the development and operation of the Commonwealth Commercialisation Institute. Over the past seven days, we have been pressing our readers to get involved and provide a 'private sector' perspective (after making the seemingly unpopular suggestion that commercialisation in Australia has been hijacked by public servants with MBAs). Today, we're turning our attention to the last section of SmartForm, which requests suggestions for the delivery of funding.

It's not an easy game standing up in front of a crowd of 120 people and pitch to a panel of hard-to-please angel investors, as 11 brave entrepreneurial souls did recently at the Melbourne Pitch Club event (held 25 June).

The Federal Government has just launched a new grant for third party service providers to help small and home based businesses with: • ‘free or low cost’ IT skills development • training and mentoring services • improved web presence and e-business capability Funding is available up to $500,000.

So while this $US32.5 million US Government funding for UltraBattery is certainly a tremendous validation for the technology and the CSIRO researchers who developed it, the international licensing option pursued means that Australia will, in all likelihood, only receive couch change from what stands to be an extremely lucrative venture for the foreign companies (Furukawa Battery Company and East Penn) that are actually doing the commercialisation.

If you were given the opportunity to stand up for 90 seconds and pitch your company to a panel of angel investors and a raucous, how would you fare?

August is Venture Capital Month at Anthill and last week we launched a new series written by San Francisco-based Steve Anderson focusing on the capital raising cultures in Australia and the US. Today, Anderson discusses the comparative advantages and disadvantages of pursuing funding from Australian VCs or US VCs.

Yesterday, as a continuation of our five part blog series calling on members of the private sector to join me in responding to the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research’s 'Opportunity for Comment', we asked readers to help us respond to the first part of the Department's SmartForm, 'Addressing the Commercialisation Gaps'. Today, we're turning our attention to the second section, which we're calling: 'Delivery of specialist advice'.

This first event in Anthill's upcoming 'Tunnel Talk' series, held in conjunction with Design Victoria, is a two-part initiative developed for business builders, commercial...

Yesterday, I posted an article calling on members of the private sector to join me in responding to the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research's Opportunity for Comment to "help inform the development and operation of the Commonwealth Commercialisation Institute." Naturally, I invite you to join me and post your own responses to each section, as a way to encourage open dialogue and the sharing of opinions. This way, when you do formerly submit your thoughts, you will do so informed by the views of many.

Yesterday, I posted an article calling on members of the private sector to join me in responding to the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research's Opportunity for Comment to "help inform the development and operation of the Commonwealth Commercialisation Institute." Naturally, I invite you to join me and post your own responses to each section, as a way to encourage open dialogue and the sharing of opinions. This way, when you do formerly submit your thoughts, you will do so informed by the views of many.

For those unfamiliar with the proposed Commonwealth Commercalisation Institute (CCI), the initiative was announced as part of the 2009 Budget. At the time, Nick McNaughton, writing for Anthill, made the observation that the CCI should be viewed as welcome relief, citing Powering Ideas - An Innovation Agenda for the 21st Century and Australia’s failure over the last decade to keep up an appropriate level of investment in innovation compared to our peers.