Vancouver Angel Technology Network is Good!

Published by Danny Robinson on October 6, 2009 under Angels, Companies, News, Startup Tips, Venture Capital

I attended this month’s VANTEC Angel Network meeting today.  I’ve attended many of Mike’s events in the past, but today’s was different for some reason.  I don’t know what it was. I just felt much more productive, professional. Maybe it’s because Mike has increased the cost to the investors from $10 per session to $50 per session (or $300 for the year).  It’s still not a lot of money, but only serious investors will pay.  Maybe Angels are feeling more confident about the economy.  I like to think my rant about inappropriate public comments about the presentation style has something to do with it, but honestly I highly doubt anyone in the room had seen that post.

Anyway, kudos to Mike.  He’s providing a great service to our Startup and Investor community alike.  If you’re looking for money, I recommend VANTEC.  There’s no cost to present, but you need a sponsor (a current investor or advisor will do), and then you have to go through a selection process.

The companies that presented and are in the digital media space were:

  • Jostle.me – a collaborative Social intra-network to help employees communicate, collaborate and find hidden talent within their own organizations.
  • Ayogo – a company that can port video games to social networks and help monetize them.
  • Wireless Image – Very simple and cool way to advertise via people’s mobile phones.
  • TinySpeck – This company didn’t actually present, but Stewart Butterfield (founder of Flickr.com, which was originally started in Vancouver) was in attendance to sponsor  Michael Fergusson’s Ayogo.  In the process, he mentioned the name of his new Startup and thought you might want to check it out.

If you’re interested in learning more about investing in Digital Media, check out my previous posts. More to come!

Introducing Starting Something, a conference to get your start up, started

Published by Boris Mann on September 11, 2008 under Events, Starting Something

Today we’re announcing our first conference targeted at founders and “idea stage” startups. One of the missions we feel we need to complete is to “raise the entreprenial IQ” here in Vancouver. Down in Silicon Valley, your downstairs neighbour probably has a drawer full of term sheets, we simply need more exposure to some of these concepts. We want to give a wide range of people some clear “next steps” they can do to keep working on their startup or startup concepts.

The workshop style conference is called Starting Something, and we’ve scheduled it for a full day on November 20th, 2008 (event on Upcoming). There will be a Launch Party that evening that you’ll also be invited to. All this to coincide with Global Entrepreneurship Week. Our August office mates, Impact, are the national Canadian host for this event – find out more at Eweek Canada.

We have 10 session slots across 2 tracks throughout the day (find a cofounder, one of you can be in each track). We have some ideas on session leaders and topics, but we’d like to hear from you! We’re kicking things off by asking you to fill out this survey to help us design the sessions and topics that you want to learn about. Thanks to Basil Peters, James from AdHack, and Trevor from Layerboom for early feedback on the session ideas.

We’re working with Kerry and Na’im from VEF Momentum to organize the conference. We will be putting a call out for speakers and sponsors in the next couple of weeks — if you’re interested in being either already, please contact us. We’re nailing down the venue as we speak and we expect tickets to be in the $50 – $75 range including breakfast, lunch, caffeine, and various “take home” templates and worksheets.

Ideally, you and your startup will be well positioned for the 2009 year to enter the New Ventures BC competition and present at Vantec, Angel Forum, Canadian Financing Forum, etc. etc. etc. What are you waiting for? Let’s get Starting Something!

Any other comments or ideas, please visit our Get Satisfaction section for Starting Something or use the widget below to give us feedback.

23rd Angel Forum – April 29th

Published by Danny Robinson on April 22, 2008 under Venture Capital

If you’re starting a consumer internet company, casual game, or consumer mobile app and are at the seed stage, there’s really only ONE source of funding for us in Vancouver: Angels. That’s why Bob’s Angel Forum is so well attended and very much appreciated by us in the tech community. If you’re a founder or funder, you should make sure to drop by next week