About a year ago, I was reading the
local paper and found a startup with an iPhone app who had raised $250K and was
featured prominently on the front page of the business section. In turning to
the back page, I found a later stage startup raising over $20M and receiving
only scant attention. It seemed odd to me that a startup with almost no hires
could gain such attention, while the later stage company providing many more
jobs received a yawn. But in today’s, startup focused world, the new trumps the
old.
In talking with many in the community, the phrase
“Series B” crunch came up often. For
some there’s ample seed and Series A funding, but little after that. Texas has
no Series B funds. In general, a Series
A fund is $50-100M and writes $500K to $2M checks. A Series B fund has $300M and writes $5M to
$15M checks.
I had a client go to the JP Morgan Healthcare
conference and came back with some substantial funding. It was a 1:1 style conference in which the
participants sign up to meet investors, providers, and others. The ability to hold many meetings in one week
makes it attractive. This is a new type
of conference called the “appointment based event” which focuses on networking
people together. In the past, most
conferences were more about the keynotes, panels, and large group
discussions. Appointment-based events
are about 1:1 and small group meetings.
TEN launched the Texas Venture Growth Forum, in
2015, holding its first conference in Austin on October 7-8, 2015. We had over 40 investors come from across the
country to meet with 27 Texas companies who were later stage startups yielding
over 125 1:1 sessions over a two day period.
The overwhelming feedback was
positive and focused on the ability to meet in 1:1 settings. Investors and CEOs liked the event because
they don’t want to just talk about fund raising. They want to be doing it.
TEN is now planning
for a Life Science version of the event in the spring of 2016.
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