The next day offers a panel discussion on how to bridge the gap between the US and international venture capital. We missed that one but we trust that the US venture industry is still the most competitive in the world.

The lunch session starts with yet another 'Panel Discussion' about Angel Funding. This one is much better as talk is based a lot on personal experience by panelist. Very outspoken John Garcia at Angel Strategies clearly leaves the strongest impression at this panel. Angel Strategies is an odd investment firm with most fund investors in Europe and most investments in Southern California. Angel Strategies is vertically integrated providing many extra services (i.e, an investment bank) and also trying to avoid a second (larger VC round) for their investments. John also screens your family before investing and is testing your wife about your ambitions - so be warned :)

The fourth round of company presentations has the following highlights:

JintiJinti has developed a search and marketing engine for the Chinese market. Again I somehow miss what is the secret sauce for this venture. The Powerpoint is not really passionate and shows too much about the market and too little about the company. Why does nobody do a demo here on the stage and why is there no Wifi here?

Black CoralWould you expect a Canadian company with that name? Black Coral helps military and civilian rescue teams (first responders) to share information location based in real time.

The system uses real time map annotations and shares the photographic maps between the teams.

I love the framework used by the army that shows real time friend/foe maps for a battlefield on robust devices. This thing really changes the game. Blackcoral is somehow a lighter (and probably cheaper) version of that idea working on laptops only right now (although a PDA version is planned).

It will not be easy to sell into these institutions and get a wider roll-out. Only a wider roll-out will unlock the beneficial communication process.

Good presentation.

PodvertiserPodvertiser is a stealth mode company that allows video or audio content to be inserted into podcasts/ webcasts.

Podvertiser recognizes categories of the content by screening the stream and than serves a matching rich media ad (as inputed by an advertiser).

Nothing to see yet but if the technology works flawlessly it is Google AdSense for Video and Audio content. I really like that. The company claims that the system allows to insert ads in real time with thousands or simultaneous downloads.

Again nothing to see - but if it works it might be a good investment.

EBusiness InternationalEBusiness International is helping mostly US based companies to outsource manufacturing by sourcing suppliers, quality control and logistics.

The company is doing $7 million in revenues and is nicely profitable. The mega trend is indisputable but it might be very hard to do due diligence when investing.

ConceptIdeaThe company claims to bring Web 2.0 to China (with around 5 million bloggers so far) - bold proposition. BlogKu has some very nice blog sites (5 so far) in China but I'm not sure why they present the consulting business so much. Nobody wants to invest in consulting company that relies on the founders IP.

ConceptIdea also has a Chinese del.icio.us copy-cat called Newhots. ConceptMedia sees the synergies between the very different businesses as a competitive advantage.

WangYouWangyou provides a place for Chinese teenagers to mingle online. Wangyou is a counterpart of US based Xanga and Livejournal or Europe based 20six in Europe. The Chinese spin to it - it is offering a seamless wireless connectivity.

As far as I know all the free blog/ collaboration hosts have a hard time to create useful applications for wireless subscribers.

Wangyou also delivers premium content to media - again something I have not seen happing with Xanga and Livejournal or 20six - but China is surely different.

The company does around $1.2 million in revenues and is profitable - nice.




The afternoon session has another panel discussion - Cross Border Investments is the topic now - again it is a fact and does not need to be talked to death. This panel does not add such extraordinary value.

Just one company in the final company presentations I found of interest:

IndoCELIndocel wants to be the only LiIon battery maker in India. They primarily want to sell to the Indian market. IP is protected and manufacturing costs are low - so why not?