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Venture going global

Fred Oliveira on August 25, 2005

As you probably know I’m still catching up on the blogging web (it moves faster than the wildfires allowed me to keep up with), so yesterday I was relieved that the business world is waking up to the global investment economy. Business2blog (the Blog for Business 2.0, who’s last issue isn’t bad at all) mentions in this post an article on Silicon Beat about a transformation in the VC land.

(…) the growing abundance of technology, labor, and entrepreneurial talent outside of Silicon Valley, which has become a global money center for venture investing. VCs are taking in more cash and now have to look abroad to deploy it.

If you’ve been following, you probably know about my unhappiness about Europe being a poor center for entrepreneurship and how much I’m willing to change that if I don’t bite the bait and fly out to SF. It appears things may be changing, though. I’ve been getting to know more and more people in the VC world who have shown interest in talking about some ideas I’ve been having, and I’m finally starting to see a way to push the envelope outside of the bay area and possibly help bring some of the tech goodness into my own shores.

Is there creativity outside the bay area? Yes. Is there funding available? There’s no clue yet but we’re about to find out in the next few years. My only fear is that investment doesn’t go beyond the new centers like India and China where labour is seriously cheaper. But since good ideas are global, I am predicting investment on those ideas is global too. It’s just a matter of getting out there with them.


Comments on this post

Tim Case

Are you convinced that VC interest wherever it may land is an indication of creativity worth funding? Or that enterpreneurial endeavors are best started with VC money? Or that you need VC money for your ideas?

If so, why?

Fred

Not all ideas need VC funding - some do. The amount of the projects around the web2.0 phenomenon that need to resort to A-level funding is getting shorter and shorter by the day. Just like most of the things I’ve been working on need little to no investment in order to step off into the web.

However I’m sure you’ll realize that in the life of many projects (and companies) there is a time for change on which a certain ammount of funds is necessary to actually make progress. This being said, no, endeavors are not best started with VC money - I say screw the money if you don’t have the idea to start with.

VC interest will probably get a project off its feet. Not all projects get the exposure they need without investment and expenditures. I repeat “not all”. Still, it makes a difference if all the investment is centered in one area because it stiffles projects coming from everywhere else - it gets people thinking about whether they’ll do fine outside this epicenter, and that’s bad for the team that started things in the first place.

So, all things considered: no. no. no.

rabble

I just met the folks from podshow who got funding, KP moved them all to San Francisco even though nobody at the team was based here.

Alex

I live on the west coast of Australia and share the same disappointment with my local region.

People here seem to embrace technology when it comes to home entertainment systems, larger TVs, DVD, or car related technology. But when it comes to the Internet it’s still just something where you can send email, or google for information.

The way I see it, web 2.0 is the natural progression of improvements in interactivity from web 1.0, just like the web 1.0 was to television. Sadly it feels as though there are a few serious hurdles to starting a 2.0 venture around here.

1) No one I’ve spoken to seems to know or care about web 2.0.

2) Those that care (me), aren’t in a position to do something about it. I’m in the process of developing ideas, sending them out on the Internet and trying my best. This is analogous to a ‘hail mary’ in NFL.

3) Due to points 1 and 2, there is no web 2.0 buzz. This means when I run around telling my friends about a cool new web 2.0 site, they don’t care. But worse for me is that I don’t get anyone telling me about cool new web 2.0 stuff unless I read it on blogs!

It’s a funny atmosphere reminiscent of the dot com era. However, unlike the dot com era, the risk to start a venture is significantly smaller, and the leap from web 1.0 to web 2.0 is smaller than from pre web days to web 1.0.

Perhaps people around here are complacent, maybe it’s the non-innovative culture, or maybe we’re just slow on the uptake. Whatever the case, I share your sentiments and hope web 2.0 makes a showing in Australia sooner rather than later.

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