Startup Houston

For those of you who were not able to attend the 4th Annual Rice Alliance Information Technology Venture Forum today and yesterday, all I can say is that you definitely missed out. Attendance at this year’s event was up by 30% over last year and everyone there agreed that they are seeing a lot more activity in the startup arena in Houston than in quite a while (that’s partly what motivated me to start this blog). For participating companies, there were three big opportunities to get in front of potential investors.

First, was the 90 second elevator pitch that all companies participated in. Second, was the company showcase, where all companies had table space to set up and show off their offerings. And Third, was a VC panel that listened to five companies provide a 10 minute presentation of their business plan and provide feedback and advice. (Actually the presentations were supposed to be 10 minutes, with 2 minutes for Q&A, but most ended up going long so all questions were held until after the panel. Also, some of the presenters could have benefited from less material).

In addition to these, there were lots of opportunities to network with VC’s, Angel Investors, Banks, and other companies. Again, if you didn’t attend I would definitely put it on your calendar for next year, because hearing what the VC panelists and speakers had to say, as well as just an opportunity to network and increase awareness of your company with others was worth the price of admission alone.

A few other notes and observations from the forum:

• Day 1 was mostly spent on the 90 second elevator pitches from the 45 startup companies that had signed up. Some notable standouts were: Commerciant, ideatango, Inquate, Kinesix, MEDeCOACH, Public Games, P.O.P. Broadcasting, Realscape, SOAPKNOX, Synerzip, Tenant Market, truehome, VALTx, VisionMonitor, & VNET World Corp. For a complete list of all companies that presented, check here.
• Hands down, the best presentation of all (IMHO) was P.O.P Broadcasting. Very dynamic speaker and CEO in Earl Littman, who received a hearty round of applause at the completion of his pitch. “Like printing money, only it’s legal!”
• You can go here to listen to all of the 90-second elevator pitches.
• On Day 2 Rob Schultz with IllinoisVENTURES spoke about how he feels that right now is the best time to start an I.T. venture. Part of what IllinoisVENTURES does is to partner with emerging technology groups coming out of the University of Illinois to help them commercialize their research. He also mentioned the growth in the Web2.0 space and I asked him if he thought that we are in the beginning of the next boom for internet technologies and companies or sitting on another bubble. His response was to say that he felt that today’s business environment is different and that the companies of today are a lot more conscious of how they use capital and their pursuit of profit and that he was very optimistic about the possibilities.
• Another comment came afterwards from Brad Burke with the Rice Alliance that he was not aware of any similar activity at Rice specifically focused on commercializing technologies coming out of Rice. Does anyone out there know if there is any group working on this in Houston?
• Also on Day 2, Rice Alliance awarded 10 of the 45 companies in attendance an award for most promising technologies based on their 90 second elevator pitches, as voted on by a panel of about 30 judges scattered throughout the audience. Unfortunately I did not get the complete list while I was there, but will post it shortly (someone with the Rice Alliance promised to forward it to me).

That’s it! If you attended, please drop a comment and let everyone know how you felt things went. I will have some additional posts on some of the latest goings on from the companies that attended, so make sure to come back and check that out.

:: Kurt ::