I spent the better part of last week out on the west coast attending the following events:


First, I went to the Finovate conference, where I saw a lot of promising startups in the finance space. Most of these companies had raised huge amounts of capital, but there were a few in the sub million angel range that were competing due to the low cost of entry for tech startups. Buxfor in particular was a great example. They were a company of two, had raised about 300,000 in angel funding, and were competing with Mint.com (over 17 million in funding)and Wesabe (4.7 million)!


After that I went out to Santa Rosa to attend Golen Capital Nework’s (GCN) conference Venture Vineyards/Santa Rosa Innovation Forum event. The turn out was great with over 20 companies pitching and practically a VC or Angel investor for each investment opportunity. The event was broken down into sections to represent startups in Health & Wellness, Software & Internet Services, Cleantech, and New Media/Web2.0. Each section had its own panel of investors ranging from the North Bay Angels to Claremont Creek Ventures.


The entrepreneurs ranged from all over the west coast including Brammo motosports, a deal currently being syndicated through Open deals, who came down from Oregon. Its great to see co-investment in action!


From the GCN event I ran back to the Bay Area for a whirlwind tour down Sandhill road. I had great meetings with Crescendo Ventures and XG Ventures before running back up to the city to attend the VentureBeat party. Thank you Eric for the invitation! The event was well attended, and turned out to be a great way to learn even more about the Bay Area startup/tech scene.


Evan Bartlett :: May.07.2008
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