As promised at the NVCA meeting in April, last Friday we held a webinar for venture capital firms and their portfolio companies on issues related to secondary market sales.  Led by Frank Currie a partner at Davis Polk & Wardell, the webinar featured guidance and commentary from Josh Green, general partner of Mohr Davidow Ventures and Delida Costin, general counsel of Pandora Media.

The webinar focused on issues for portfolio companies considering secondary sales of their privately held stock as well as guidance for how to mitigate corresponding regulatory and market risks and liabilities.  Many companies are facing pressure from their long time employees to offer various degrees of liquidity.  However, with that strategy comes a host of issues that must be adequately addressed so as not to run afoul of regulations or create a situation in which the company loses its flexibility to make strategic decisions. Frank, Josh and Delida each shared ways in which companies can pursue secondary market transactions most effectively.

Due to the significant interest in this topic, the NVCA is making the archive of this webinar available to the public free of charge.  You can download the full presentation here.  We remain committed to educating our members and their companies about this rapidly evolving area.

Hundreds of venture capitalists gathered on the campus of MIT yesterday to celebrate the 65^thanniversary of venture capital in America. Organized and sponsored by Xconomy and held in conjunction with the NVCA Annual Meeting, the VC65 event featured speakers, multimedia presentations and panel discussions about the venture community’s past and future. This blend of classic VC principles and forward looking perspectives provided a persistent thread for the programming. Accomplished VC veterans detailed how they have taken lessons learned from venture investing and applied them successfully to other endeavors – including charitable causes, while emerging directors speculated on how the roles of VCs and entrepreneurs will evolve in the coming decades. (Spoiler alert: Those roles will increasingly intermingle.)

In that regard, the event effectively doubled as a celebration of entrepreneurship and the VC-entrepreneur relationship. Innovators and investors shared the stage to tell the stories of how they have built emerging companies like Kiva Systems and Skype. In their presentation, Robert Langer, of Langer Labs/MIT and Terry McGuire, of Polaris and NVCA chairman emeritus, actually provided a checklist for developing and maintaining a healthy VC-entrepreneur relationship. (So far, their partnership has produced 17 startups, so perhaps they are on to something.) In general, optimism about the future of entrepreneurship ran high, as VCs shared experiences with a new generation of college grads – both in the U.S. and abroad – who are choosing entrepreneurship as their first career path – not as Plan B. Some predicted that both entrepreneurship and venture investing will become more professionalized as a result, but opinions split over whether this will lead to higher success rates in the future.

Overall, the feeling that innovators will always innovate – either here or abroad – and that venture investors will always find those innovators – regardless of economic cycles – seemed to prevail. The VC model is not broken, but rather has entered a perpetual state of evolution and refinement. Another 65 years from now, it figures to look altogether similar and different. If that happensso, the venture community will have cause for yet another celebration.

The 2011 NVCA Annual Meeting kicks off in just 16 days in Boston!  This post serves as an invitation for all venture capitalists to join us for what is always an exciting and vaulable time together.  For those VCs who haven't yet registered, here are three reasons why you should take care of this today:

1.  It's a celebration!  This year marks the 65th Anniversary of the formation of the first modern venture capital firm, American Research and Development, and the 150th Anniversary of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Both milestones have had a profound impact on innovation and we are planning to celebrate the collaboration between leading research institutions, entrepreneurs, cutting edge technology and venture investors.  Join NVCA along with Xconomy and the MIT Museum on the afternoon of April 6th for an opportunity to reflect on all that has been created -- and all that will be -- thanks to venture capital and entrepreneurship.

2.  It's just for investors.  Attendance at our meeting is limited to venture investors, select conference sponsors and invited press. Every year, attendees return to the NVCA Annual Meeting because it is a unique chance to connect and share ideas with peers that have similar challenges and objectives. 

3.  Fascinating speakers talking both big picture and important nuances. With industry track sessions on the morning of April 6th followed by big picture perspectives from many of the most well known investors, academics and political players in the country, the NVCA Annual Meeting will cover the most important issues faced by venture capitalists..  Our keynote speakers include serial entrepreneur, Desh Deshpande, and MIT President, Susan Hockfield.  They will be joined by luminaries such as HBS professor Bill Sahlman, Robotics expert Rodney Brooks, MIT’s Dr. Ernie Moniz, CMS’ Drs. Richard Gilfillan and Louis Jacques, and DOE’s Dr. Steven Koonin.  Check out the agenda here.

If you are a venture capitalist, we hope you will join the hundreds of VCs already registered and sign up today. 

I look forward to seeing you in Boston on April 6 & 7.

International Delegation of Venture Associations Pose with HWS Colleges President Mark Gearan and Student Hosts

Earlier this week, Hobart and William Smith (HWS) Colleges in Geneva, New York hosted twelve venture capital associations from around the globe in an inaugural gathering.  Representatives from the NVCA were joined by peers representing the interests of the venture industries in Europe, Africa, Australia, Latin America, India, China and Israel.  The concept of NVCA Chairman Emeritus and Polaris Venture Partners Co- Founder, Terry McGuire, the Congress offered the associations a unique opportunity to discuss the environment for venture investing in our respective regions and to share perspectives on the global venture capital economy.

During the two full days we were together, topics ranged from the evolving exit market for venture backed companies to the status of the AIFM directive in Europe.  While NVCA has kept apprised of the developments in the ecosystems overseas, we had yet to have an opportunity to sit down in person with our counterparts and discuss challenges and opportunities in great detail.  And while we all are addressing increasing difficult political environments in which to invest, at the same time we are all enthusiastic about the economic growth and innovation that venture capital has brought and will continue to bring to our respective regions.  The group plans to operate in committee form over the next year to further several of our shared objectives including the proper positioning of venture capital as a key contributor to global economic growth and fostering market conditions which support the start-up ecosystem.

Our experience was further enhanced by the hospitality of HWS President  Mark Gearan and the college’s outstanding student leaders, the latter who spent considerable time with the delegation discussing both venture capital issues and their future aspirations.

The meeting’s success was evidenced in the unanimous decision to gather each year as a group going forward and we look forward to joining one another next year in Israel.

The world is a big place and although we hear a lot about venture-backed companies outsourcing parts of their operations to China or India, there are countries that are less talked about that are offering benefits that some venture-backed companies (and their investors) should consider.

For example, were you aware that Belfast, Northern Ireland has the lowest operating costs of any comparable region within Western Europe coupled with established ICT, Financial Services and BPO clusters? Or, that Argentina and Brazil are emerging as strong alternatives to India and China for IT investment and BPO outsourcing?

Every global location has its pros and cons and each business is a unique case. Join NVCA on September 17th at 12:00 pm ET for a 60 minute webcast that will look at the factors that all companies (and their investors) should consider before implementing an international expansion strategy. We will highlight some different regions and the unique incentives being offered to emerging growth companies. And, our experienced panel of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists will share lessons learned from their experiences in building companies in a variety of countries. For more information about this program, please visit http://www.nvca.org/index.php?option=com_eventlist&view=details&id=319:webcast-portfolio-companies-going-global&Itemid=156