Up to 15 companies will be selected to make presentations to venture capitalists at the fifth annual Intermountain Venture Forum- Boise, slated Oct. 1-2 at Boise Centre on the Grove.
Entrepreneurs seeking financing have until Aug. 8 to submit applications.
Presenters will receive mentoring from the venture capitalists, attend an exclusive dinner with them, and feature their businesses in individual display booths.
The Boise Metro Economic Development Council – a unit of the Boise Metro Chamber of Commerce – and Boise law firm Holland & Hart will present the forum.
Forum preparations get under way as the venture market shows signs of picking up from a lull that lasted through last year, sources said.
Brent Thomas, BMEDC economic development manager and the director of the venture forum, said he expects the number of applications to exceed last year’s total of 45.
The first Boise venture capital forum drew about 60 people, and last year’s event included about 250 VC firms, presenting companies, and audience members.
This year, Thomas said, companies selected to make presentations will receive mentoring from venture capitalists prior to their presentations. They will also go through a rehearsal with a presentation coach in advance.
The venture capital market has been more active this year, said Mark Solon, managing partner of Boise-based VC firm Highway 12 Ventures and a member of the forum steering committee.
Nationally, “there is still some digestion to occur over the massive investments of the late 1990s and early 2000,” he said. In the Intermountain region, “we are seeing a significant increase in both the quality and quantity of startup companies.”
The second quarter of this year produced a significant increase in deal volume and quality, Solon said. That was in contrast to the final quarter of last year, when deal flow and quality approached their lowest levels in about 10 years, he said.
“The theme is that things are definitely picking up. We’re just seeing a lot more activity in the startup space,” he said.
Venture firms now tend to look at fewer cutting-edge technology firms than they did in the late 1990s, and more enterprises that have traditional characteristics or that use technology to create greater efficiency for businesses, Solon said.
(Copyright 2003 Dolan Media Newswires)
