Georgia Cleantech 2007 is fast approaching (June 12th)! I’ve briefly mentioned this event before (here and here), but as the date approaches I am getting even more excited about it. Attendees will have an opportunity to:

• Discover the many exciting Georgia Innovations that are happening in the cleantech space
• Listen to venture capitalists, cleantech entrepreneurs, and other subject matter experts share their insights
• Enjoy fast venture pitches by hot, up-and-coming Georgia cleantech companies
• Explore our “cleantech showcase”, which will feature many emerging Georgia clean technologies

We’ve lined up a very strong set of speakers and panelists as well:

• David Bell, Resource Policy & Planning, Georgia Power
• Rolando Sanz-Guerrero, Vice President, CoalTek
• Murrary Campbell, Chairman, First United Ethanol LLC (FUEL)
• David Kirkpatrick, Managing Director, SJF Ventures
• Michael DeRosa, Managing Director, DFJ Element Ventures
• Bruce Wobeck, Partner, Morris Manning & Martin

I am particularly excited about hearing from CoalTek – they’re one of the most highly capitalized (via Draper Fisher Jurvetson) cleantech deals in the past few years, and have been largely running in stealth mode until now. In many ways, this is a bit of a coming out party for them. It will be interesting to hear what they have to say. Same for FUEL, which raised some cash, and broke ground on their ethanol plant this year.

A special thanks to my friends at SJF Ventures (David Kirkpatrick ) and DFJ Element Ventures (Mike DeRosa) for helping us out. They’ll be bringing the venture capital perspective to the table. I’m at a bit of an advantage as I’ve seen David’s presentation already, but it is chock full of good stuff.

Of course, being a startup geek, I’m thrilled that we’ve been able to work some of the younger companies into the mix. We’ll have three Georgia cleantech startups doing their fast pitch (C2Biofuels, Edge BioEnergy, and OMT Energy.) Plus, we’ll have an “Alternative Energy Showcase” area where start-up or established cleantech companies can set up a table with posters, demonstrations and materials to share their innovative ideas for alternative energy.

We have a number of angel investors and venture capitalists that will be in attendance as well – many of them have expressed to me their desire to learn more about the space, and to see what sort of innovations are coming out of Georgia.

Space is limited, so if you have an interest in attending, you’ll want to sign up sooner rather than later (click here). I say sooner, rather than later, because cleantech is a very hot space right now, and there are a lot of folks out there wanting to learn more about the industry.

Also, if you are a Georgia-based early-stage cleantech company (or technology) and you are interested in participating in the free showcase area, contact me.

Thanks to all of my fellow board members of the TAG Business & Technology Alliance for helping to pull this together. It should be a great event!

Cheers.

Calling all Atlanta entrepreneurs (again!) David Ratajczak’s much anticipated YnR gathering is happening again.

As David explained in our recent podcast down at the ATDC, YnR stands for “Young ‘n Restless” or “Youthful ‘n Retired”, depending upon your age group.

This monthly (or so) event is a great place to meet and network with fellow entrepreneurs. Fellow entrepreneurs are great doorways to investors, ideas, and partnerships. So you won’t want to miss this. The cost is free, and the event is industry-agnostic, so what’s not to love?

In keeping with the theme of keeping out the service provider crowd, the location is confidential, so if you are interested in attending, let me know and I’ll put you in touch with David.

Cheers.

I’ve gotten into this same conversation with 3 or 4 people this week, and it is one that comes up quite often during my discussions with early-stage technology CEOs here in Atlanta. How do I find seed or angel angel capital in Atlanta so that I can fund my high-tech widget or software company?

Raising money is rarely easy. It is even harder in Atlanta. The good news is that software/IT is a sector in which Atlanta is very strong. There are a lot of people in this city that get information technology.

Whenever the “panels” and “luminaries” are asked this question, they usually throw out the two stock answers: the 3F’s and Sig Mosley. The 3F’s being friends, family, and fools, and Sig Mosley being the unwitting godfather of early-stage technology investing in Atlanta.

What they fail to tell you, however, is how you should actually go about approaching these angels, and in what order.

Read more »

Knox Massey was kind enough to invite me down to last night’s meeting of the Atlanta Technology Angels. While I know many of the members individually, this was the first time I had actually attended one of their monthly meetings.

In keeping with the confidential setting of the meeting, I don’t want to reveal anything about the actual companies, but I can make some generalizations.

The format was very interesting. They had two companies do their pitch. One company was an ATDC company, the other was commercialized technology coming out of Georgia Tech. There were a few questions asked of each entrepreneur. Afterwards, the entrepreneurs left the room and the 20-25 angels in the room had an open discussion about what they thought of the deal. There were some really interesting exchanges of information, and I really like the format they used.

The diversity of backgrounds in the room made it so that there were “logical subject matter experts” on hand. The rest of the group relied on these individuals to give legitimacy to (or shoot holes in) the deal. Very nice.

For those interested, they were discussing 500K-$1M deals. After the discussion, someone was appointed to lead a “due diligence group,” I would assume to go off and meet with the company, and put together a more formal assessment of the company, market, technology, team, etc.

I also learned that Knox will soon be joining the blogosphere. I think this is a very welcome addition to the landscape here. I wish we could get more of the Atlanta venture folks blogging and exchanging ideas.

Afterwards, I had a great chat over dinner with Jeff Haynie. Bright guy – I wish I had met him years ago, but certainly glad we’re connected now. I love people that are brimming with ideas. It’s great to feed off that energy.

Cheers.

Sorry this post is a day late – I’ve been deluged with emails and other stuff.  We just published a nice wrapup and photo gallery of the recent Capital Connections event.

Enjoy!

If you weren’t able to attend, we hope you can make the next one. We certainly had a blast putting it together, and even more fun sharing ideas and connections.
Cheers.

Well, the big day is tomorrow (or technically today, since it’s after midnight.) The first ever StartupLounge.com Capital Connections event will be in full swing tomorrow night.

We sent out 30 emails to our friends, and quite honestly, we thought we’d have 30 or 40 fast-growth entrepreneurs and a handful of angels hanging out in a bar somewhere. Now we’re pushing 200 people. There are over 35 investors slated to attend, ranging from individual angels to a $1B fund and everything in between. We moved the venue due to demand, then filled up the second venue. We finally stopped accepting applications – we had no choice. This thing has morphed into something that far exceeds our wildest expectations. Our next event (in the fall) could very easily have 300 people in attendance.

Am I nervous? I suppose a little. I’m no event planner, that’s for damn sure. But I’m of the belief that if you put ideas and capital in the same room, lock the door, and let nature take its course, only good things can come out of that. Of course, the hors d’oeuvres and fully stocked bar will help … Hopefully it won’t be a complete goat rodeo.

Today we made 200 phone calls. We called every single person that had RSVP’d in order to make sure they received the email on the change of venue (we wanted to make absolutely certain that everyone was aware of it.) The comments we received during those calls were amazing. People are not only excited about the event, but they are very gracious for it, and that makes us feel very good indeed. And I’m not just talking about the lowly entrepreneur here – the investor comments ran along the same lines (especially so among the angel community.)

There is some serious pent-up demand out there.

I want to serve up some props.

The “Atlanta venture community” (an oxymoron to many here, including some local investors) really responded to this event. Most of the local players will be there (Noro-Moseley, Imlay/Sig Mosley, Kinetic, EGL, Croft-Bender, Atlanta Technology Angels, Smith-Hoffman Capital, the UPS Strategic Venture Fund, VentureLab, etc.) and I’m very pleased about that. I don’t expect them to start dramatically swinging back to the early stage come Thursday morning, but the pulse is there. I give them props for realizing that there is a new movement happening around them. They know they need to become more immersed in the community, and I hope our quarterly event can be a catalyst to help with that moving forward.

I also have to give mad props to North Carolina. First off, they are totally kicking Georgia’s ass in venture investments. Second, at one point there were more NC funds slated to attend our event than GA funds (although it is more balanced now.) There are some lean, mean, hungry funds coming out of NC, folks.

I should also thank the many folks that pitched in to help pull this event together.

• Mike Blake
• Stacy Williams
• Jeff Haynie
• Jerry Recht
• Sam Bailey
• David Ratajczak
• Sanjay Parekh
• Paul Freet
• Lance Weatherby

Some gave cash, some their time, and some just helped to spread the word, but everyone is chasing the same dream here, and that is to bring Atlanta back. We’re going to do it, hell or high water.

See everyone tonight!

Cheers.

The big date approaches for our first Capital Connections event here in Atlanta. The response has been so tremendous that we’ve had to change the venue – we went WAY over the capacity of our original venue. We currently have over 150 entrepreneurs and investors that will be in attendance. Given that we’ve gone to some pretty good lengths to keep the service provider crowd out, that number sounds even bigger. My guess is that we’ll hit 200 before the actual event, which would be awesome!

Over the past two months, I have evangelized this event to hundreds of people. I’ve worked the phones, email, the blogosphere, message boards, and even went door-to-door in some cases. It is pretty easy to see why people get excited about the event – I mean – what’s not to like?

But I keep getting asked this one little annoying question.

How are you getting paid?

Perhaps people ask me that question because they assume that because I’m an entrepreneur, we must be monetizing this effort in some way. However, I don’t think so. I think this question is symptomatic of one of the things that I dislike about the culture here in Atlanta. Before you chastize me, I was born and raised here – so yes, I have a license to vent – I’m not a carpetbagger.

As I’ve blogged about before (and talked about on the StartupLounge.com podcast), one of the things that is wrong with this community is that everyone is walking around with their hand out looking to get paid. It seems to bug people to no end that we aren’t charging a door fee, charging for people to pitch their deal, or instituting some sort of membership fee. I’ve even been told that we should “scale this out nationwide and charge for it.” Blah.

We are trying to tear down the artificial walls in the early-stage community here, not add new ones.

We will get paid in the end the same way every attendee will: a rising tide lifts all boats. By creating a more vibrant early-stage community here in Atlanta, there will be more fun things to invest in, more great people to meet, more jobs created, and more problems to solve. And that, my friends, is what it is all about.

This event is not the answer to everything that ills us in Atlanta – but it does represent a start. It is an artificial process that will hopefully jumpstart a few deals (especially since we’re doing it every quarter.) The real startup ecosystem or process will evolve on its own – it cannot be artificially created. But hopefully, this event can be a catalyst to help ignite the fire.

Cheers.