Capacity Crowd at 2009 Southeast Venture Conference Optimistic about Market

Event speakers say this is the best time to start a new company

ATLANTA, March 19 Investors and entrepreneurs alike were optimistic about the region’s investment and entrepreneurial climate, despite the economy, at last week’s Southeast Venture Conference (SEVC) held at the Intercontinental Buckhead in Atlanta. The capacity crowd of 700 consisted of national investors, regional entrepreneurs and key industry support providers.

“This is the best time ever to start a company,” Tim Draper, managing director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, told the sold-out crowd. “People need jobs, existing companies are reeling, there are fewer start-up competitors, and you’ll have newer technology,” he said. “Innovation spikes at times like this and takes a dip during boom times.”

Draper discussed how many of the largest and most successful companies started during depressions or recessions, citing GE, Chevron, Westinghouse, Microsoft, Amgen, Adobe, Skype, and Johnson and Johnson, among others.

“Entrepreneurs, this is your time. This is your moment, go out and do something,” Draper said.

Rich Karlgaard, Publisher of Forbes Magazine echoed Draper’s optimism at the two day conference which featured dozens of presenting companies from the region and a number of panels.

Karlgaard outlined the changes that volatility in the Great Depression years of the 1930s and the recession years of the 1970s produced, noting that this recession is much more like that of the 70s than that of the much worse depression years. Economic volatility frequently leads to innovation and positive world-altering changes, he said.

The volatility in the 1970s, he said, produced “A great entrepreneurial decade,” that gave us Warren Buffet’s Birkshire Hathaway, Bill Gates and Microsoft, Steve Jobs and Steve Woziak’s Apple Computers, as well as FedEx, Oracle and Genentech.

Now, Karlgaard said, is a great time for entrepreneurs and growth companies to acquire talent that might not be available in boom times. “Times like these are going to relocate a lot of people into entrepreneurs and new companies.”

“Innovation continues despite the lagging economy,” said Southeast Venture Conference Director, Scott Hedrick. “The fact that we had over $60 billion in investment capital and the largest crowd yet at this event, bodes well for the health of the underlying Southeast entrepreneurial community,” he said. “While they might be more deliberate right now, investors are still looking for deals and good companies are getting funding.”

Echoing those comments during the event’s “State of the Market” panel, Patrick Kerins, general partner of NEA, a multi-billion dollar venture fund, said, “We used to average two or three new deals a month, now it’s down to one. We don’t want to take a year off. We feel if we don’t do a number of them [deals] in 2009, it would be a mistake.”

The conference showcased dozens of the most promising emerging technology firms in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic regions and featured a number of panels and speakers such as venture capitalist heavyweight Tim Draper, founder and managing director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson; Rich Karlgaard, publisher of Forbes Magazine; Chip Perry, president and CEO of AutoTrader.com; Governor Robert Ehrlich, Jr. of Maryland and Robin Weiss, SVP of NYSE Euronext to name a few.

About the Southeast Venture Conference

The 3rd annual Southeast Venture Conference (SEVC) took place in Atlanta March 11-12th, 2009. The mission of the Southeast Venture Conference is to help support the innovation and entrepreneurial activity of emerging high growth technology companies from the Southeast region (the world’s 5th largest economy) and the resulting economic growth in the region. As part of that goal, the SEVC understands the importance of investment capital to this equation and provides a key forum to facilitate the infusion of growth to the Southeast high growth technology community. The SEVC highlights both early stage and later stage investment opportunities from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and Washington DC. For more information, visit: www.seventure.org

Source: Southeast Venture Conference