SXSWi, University BP Winners & the next OpenCoffee

As always a busy time for entrepreneurs and innovators, lots to talk about next Tues, 7 April from 8.30 in Starbucks on Park St.

By all accounts the Bristol (and South West) contingent at SXSWi (Austin, Texas) had a great time, promoting Bristol, pervasive media and all things British to our American cousins. Whilst we’re over the pond, in case anyone thought investing had dried up completely, two venture firms just announced they’d closed new fund ready for investing. Charles River Ventures with $320m (and a good track record of start-up investing) and Essex Woodlands Health with a whopping $900m (though they’re not really start-up focused).

Closer to home the various University Business Plan Competitions are approaching their award ceremonies (UWE on 7 May, RAC on 15 May, Gloucester in w/c 8 June, Bristol on 30 June), the University of Bath was first out of the blocks, selecting “UK Students Abroad” on 20 March.

For companies that aren’t eligible for the in-house programmes, there are plenty of local angel and VC sources including SWAIN, Eden, Catalyst, and Pembridge Partners (bit further afield in London), along with the broad support for entrepreneurs available from the SETsquared facilities. Speaking of which, don’t forget that on 21 April we’ll be having another company demo session at SETsquared.
Bookings still open (http://opencoffeebristol21april2009.eventbrite.com/)

See you soon,
John

March 31, 2009 | Filed Under opencoffee | 1 Comment 

and lo there was Cheesecake

Cheesecake at OpenCoffee Bristol on Twitpic

Much to the consternation of Nathan from Veale Wasbrough Lawyers (who had just been to the gym) we were surprised with cheesecake at this morning’s OpenCoffee!

Which was nice.

We stayed upstairs and had pretty soon taken over most of the comfy chairs. Matt from Catalyst Venture Partners, Mark from Information Processing Ltd, Nigel from Katugas, Richard from Mobile Pie, Ed from Tonsho, Charles from Roxburgh Milkins all helped me demolish the cheesecake over discussions about the use of Open Source in the public sector and how to get past the gatekeepers.

As the Open Source discussion moved into the business benefits of the freedom of an open platform to develop your applications, we moved more into the mobile world. Richard described their experiences with taking ideas through conception to listing on the Apple iStore both as commercial and free apps. While there were undoubted hurdles, having a captive audience and known boundaries within which to operate actually helps the process for a small developer.

Richard is also working with the Android / Cupcake. I’d hoped this would be another common software platform, but Richard thought that different devices would require some versioning to deliver the same user experience. For the smaller developer this could be enough to put a lot of people off.

I had to dash to another meeting so missed the last 45 mins and any later arrivals.

The next OpenCoffee Bristol will be Tues, 24 March in Starbucks.

The next Demo Session will be on Tues, 21 April at SETsquared, courtesy of Nick Sturge.

Booking now open!

March 10, 2009 | Filed Under opencoffee | Comments Off 

More great coffee & conversations

After a great demo session last week, we’re back up at Starbucks on Tues, 10 March, for more entrepreneurs sharing their ideas and building their enterprises.

As always there’s a huge amount of activity in support of entrepreneurs and small businesses looking to grow. The day after our demo session Google removed the limits on their AppEngine providing an alternative to the very popular Amazon AWS & EC2. Meanwhile the UK Government is looking for the most enterprising region of Britain (organised by Make Your Mark, last year it was Scarborough).

Here in Bristol the Pervasive Media Studio announced the projects in their 2009 Sandbox.

And Nick Sturge has offered the use of SETsquared for another demo session on Tues, 21 April.

See you all again on 10 March.

March 2, 2009 | Filed Under opencoffee | Comments Off 

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