Review: UTC Event “An Outside Look at Venture Funding”

• Posted by Steve Spencer

Article posted on Jun 13

For those of you who know me, you know I tend to be outspoken. So today, when the UTC put on a panel with three VC’s from outside of Utah, I just had to ask the question that was the elephant in the room:

Often Angel investors will put money into a new company in the form of a convertable note. Such notes are often converted when the company does their VC round. Have you seen the valuations on such conversions generally to be based on the initial valuation by the Angel, or based on a certain percentage better than the VC money?

Okay, so that was meant to be the question. Unfortunately I expressed it about as articulate as a drunken schnauzer (ever just have one of those days?)

But regardless, the response from Phil Reed of Highway 12 was that it tended to be based on a certain percentage better than the VC money.

On to the rest of the review: This was my first time inside the Student Center at UVSC, and I have to say I was impressed. Very nice facility. The food was good, there was platy of space, it looked classy.

After the first ten minutes I’ll admit I was a bit skeptical… it felt like we were just going to get sales pitches from VC’s about how cool their Fund was. But once they started to get into the meat of things, I was impressed. Ido Sarig from Weisel Venture Partners was one of the panelists… you know, you hear people talk about smart money and dumb money… I was very impressed to hear Ido speak. He clearly really gets technology and is a very bright guy.

Judy and Mark from the UTC ran the event well, as they always do.

Nice job UTC for another informative event.

• Posted in Events