Bloomberg TV is running a show called Bloomberg Innovators.  One of our portfolio companies – Oblong – is the focus of the first episode that airs this Friday (10/30) on Bloomberg TV at 9pm and 11pm ET. 

Unfortunately, I became part of the show and had a bad hair day.  I’m speaking in front of my Donkey Kong machine, which good friend David Cohen points out the irony of me talking about the future of human/computer interactions while in front of a vintage arcade machine. 

Forgive the location and hair, but watch the show. It’s going to be great and feature an unbelievably exciting investment of ours. 

As the Obama administration starts to talk about propping up small businesses with the next phase of the bailout, I’ve begun hearing noise from some venture capitalists and angel investors that the government should provide financial support to startups, early-stage venture capitalists and angel investors.

All I can say to this is “vomit.”

There are white papers being developed, politicians lobbied and it’s all based on the proposition that what’s good for small business is good for the United States.

I agree with the premise.  In fact, my open letter to the Obama administration on what innovation policy should be details my support and how I think the government should be involved in these efforts.

But it shouldn’t involve bailouts or cash handouts to our industry.  I find it offensive that high net worth angel investors or highly compensated venture capitalists along with their sophisticated investors need to be bailed out.  We, as an industry, should be responsible for our investments and frankly, the current recession hasn’t affected our early-stage industry very much.  Asking for government help is just being greedy and opportunistic. 

Similarly, the entrepreneurs who take risks to create companies have the same risks today that they did previously.  Yes, on the margin, it might be a bit tougher, but there are plenty of benefits as well, like lower priced rents and the ease of hiring good people.

To say that we should use the general public’s tax dollars to prop up our industry is wrong and I encourage people to openly oppose it to those that are starting to get behind the movement. 

The 2nd annual CU Venture Challenge is upon us.  If you have a CU identification card, have a great idea and want free mentorship and potential funding if you win, then check it out.

November 11th kicks off a presentation by Paul Berberian talking about how to pick a good idea and whether or not it is worth starting a business around it.  The event will take place in the law school’s large courtroom at 6pm, with networking to follow.

The New Venture Challenge continues to ramp up Nov. 18 with “Pitch Day,” where entrants will deliver short pitches about their business ideas and network to round out their teams with expertise from CU programs ranging from engineering and liberal arts to business and law. The pitches begin at 6 p.m. in the ATLAS Building, room 100.

More information can be found here.

Yes.

In fact today, we announced our latest investment.  The company is called Organic Motion and they reached out to us having absolutely no connections to our group.

We met the company through our blogging at the Foundry Group.  It’s the second company (Brightleaf being the other) that introduced themselves to us after reading posts that we’ve written on our personal and Foundry Group blogs.   It’s really exciting to expand our network with new people and we are proud of the fact that we invest in entrepreneurs whom we’ve had no previous connections with.  Yes, the cold call still works if you have a great team, a great idea and fit within one of our investment themes.

In Organic Motion’s case, the company fit right into our human computer interaction investment theme, along with our previous investments Oblong and Smith and Tinker.

The company is based in New York City and is a leading innovator of computer vision and advanced motion capture systems. Their technology dramatically increases a computer’s ability to see and understand the motion of humans and other living organisms. The company offers groundbreaking turnkey and customized motion capture systems that utilize its patent-pending breakthrough computer vision technology.  For those of you interested in the space, this is the first markerless technology that we’ve seen that really works.

Welcome Andrew, Jonathan and team on our new partnership.  Thank you very much for finding us.

Every once in a while I get sent a link of a “new” music instrument that will “revolutionize” the music world.

And every time I have the same reaction:  So what?

Check out the video below of the Eigenharp that claims to be the most revolutionary new musical instrument of the last 60 years”

The problems that I have with these new generation of instruments are all the same.

1. They are nothing more than controllers that rely on current synthesizer technology to produce sounds which in many cases pale in comparison to the original instrument; and

2. You look like a complete tool when you are playing it.

One can argue that sound reproduction technology will continue to improve but one thing that will never change is that musicians want to look cool, not just sound good.

I do like the Bourne soundtrack choice of song, though.

As with any good series, there are always good outtakes.  The TechStars Founders video series is no exception, either.  And yes, I do look like an idiot. 

Check it out. 

The Founders | Bloopers from Megan Leigh Sweeney on Vimeo.

Our latest investment, Next Big Sound is hiring.  Here is he scoop:

Software Engineer – Products

Interested in creating great products and tools for the music industry? We are seeking an experienced Software Engineer to join our engineering team. The position is full-time and is based in our main office in downtown Boulder, CO.

• Create web applications primarily using PHP
• Familiarity with the MVC framework
• Implement web interfaces using HTML, CSS, & Javascript
• Working knowledge of PHP, relational databases and SQL (preferable MySQL)
• Ability to learn and adopt new languages, libraries, and technologies as needed.
  (A working knowledge of Flex/Flash or the willingness to learn is a plus)
• Ability to identify performance bottlenecks and provide code optimization recommendations
• BS or MS in Computer Science or Engineering is preferred

Software Engineer – Systems

Want to solve large scale, highly complex technical problems? We are seeking an experienced Software Engineer to join our engineering team. The position is full-time and is based in our main office in downtown Boulder, CO.

• Design core, backend software components
• Analyze and improve efficiency, scalability, and stability of data collection, storage, and retrieval processes
• A focus on scaling horizontally rather than vertically
• Experience designing and implementing software for multi-tier systems that aggregate, manipulate, and display large data-sets. We use Java, PHP, and MySQL.
• BS or MS in Computer Science or Engineering

If interested, send your resume to jobs@nextbigsound.com.

Last week, venture capitalists perked up when reform out of the House of representatives carved out VCs falling under the tight scrutiny that private equity and hedge funds are soon to endure.

If you’d like to read about the regulation issue, it’s part of my letter to Obama on innovation policy blog a while back.

Yesterday, however, we’ve another battle to fight and it’s with the Private Equity Council.  The PEC is the lobbying group for the dozen or so largest private equity firms in the world.  Their mouthpiece, Doug Lowenstein, in prepared remarks said:  “We have and continue to support requiring registration of managers of private equity, venture capital and hedge funds.”

It sounds nice on the Hill and I’m sure many people will applaud Mr. Lowenstein’s desire to let the government monitor his firms actions, but is this altruistic or are there other ulterior motives going on here?

What he doesn’t tell you is this:

1. He only represents the largest of the large funds.  You know, the guys who can easily take down $50 to $100m in management fees (each person) per year?  What’s a couple extra million out of your pocket for compliance issues especially when you know that this financial burden of regulation and compliance will cripple your smaller competitors?;

2.  His clients are the ones who used risky leverage to cause some of the disruption in the economy that we’ve seen.  VCs don’t use leverage.  And in fact, our $28 billion dollars deployed as an industry last year is a pittance to what these funds can deploy in a single investment, if they wish. I think Terry McGuire, Chairman of the NVCA says is best when he argued that defining a venture capitalist — as opposed to a hedge fund or private equity investor — could be done using the Treasury’s guidelines for systemic risk, which identifies things such as leverage and counterparty risk.

So what might seem like a noble effort to be transparent and do “their part” seems hollow when one looks at the benefits they’ll gain by hurting their competitors, helping to harm an asset class that doesn’t introduce systemic risk in to the economy (VCs) and allows them to get off the hook for the previous injuries they’ve created in the macro economy.

Don’t support the hype.  Realize that club of a dozen or so massive PE firms is not the voice that we should be listening to support innovation and a healthy economy in this country.

Of the most popular posts that Brad and I have created are our series on Term Sheets, Compensation, and Mergers and Acquisitions.  One of the subjects that we’ve wanted to tackle has been the dissolution of companies.  It’s never fun to think about failure, but it happens a lot.

I recently gave an interview about how to handle start-up failures and gracefully exit your venture.  That being said, neither Brad or I had gotten around to creating a written series on the subject, so it was with great joy that my friend Roger Glovsky elected to write the series himself. 

We are going to post these on Askthevc.com and the first post is here.  These are must reads for anyone struggling with the issue.