SouthEast Venture Conference
I attended the SEVC last week in Washington, D.C. – great job Eric Gregg and team. It was well run, had about 600+ people and not 1 but 2 great speakers. Jimmy Wales – co founder of Wikipedia and Vint Cerf – “Father of the Internet” each gave inspired talks on where they came from and what comes next.
A good part of the conference was geared towards the venture capital groups and I am left wondering why all the emphasis on IPO’s, exits and liquidity? Don’t be silly – I understand the basic why, what I am wondering is why no discussions about how to restart this venture engine. There is a great story around TechStars, Y-Combinator and of course the Triangle StartUp Factory. Even the NCVA spoke about changes to the industry but not one mention of the role accelerator programs have on the venture finance model.
Or we can all sit and pray that there will be 4-5 large exits in 2010 that make everything OK again. There’s no place like home – there’s no place like home.
