yet2 and yet2Ventures Annual Retreat

One of the most fun and interesting things for me, is the annual gathering of the yet2.com & yet2Ventures leadership teams.  Our offices in; Tokyo, Liverpool, Boston and Wilmington Delaware get together to share leanings and observations on technology trends.  Our perspective is a little unusual because we touch; open innovation, IP licensing, technology scouting and venture capital – so I pay close attention to the discussion.

Some high level learning’s?

1. Corporates generally have high amounts of cash and dry R&D pipelines.  They are paying a lot more attention to startups.  The IPO window is closed, but the M&A one is opening.
2. Mobile Everything (Ok this is not much of a new learning).
3. Many to many business models are growing rapidly.  See; LiquidSpace, RelayRides, Waze, AirBnB.  What are the industrial corollaries to these?
4. Dont give up on the material sciences – there is still quite a lot of great new technology coming to market.
5. Lots of impressive image capture and image display technologies are also coming to market.
6. All things being equal, Phil will take us on a 20 mile hike.

But mostly, I’m grateful to be in this business, and I’m grateful to be working with such a bright and dedicated group at yet2.

yet2 & yet2ventures retreat

World’s First Manned Flight with an Electric Multicopter.

I’m not sure of the practical benefits of such a device or the market, but it’s very cool.  If I could find a way to sneak it past our accounting system, we’ll order it.

 

A Trip of a Lifetime

 

3 guys, 44 days, 11 countries, 18 flights, 38 thousand miles, an exploding volcano, 2 cameras and almost a terabyte of footage… all to turn 3 ambitious linear concepts based on movement, learning and food ….into 3 beautiful and hopefully compelling short films…..
= a trip of a lifetime.

move, eat, learn

Rick Mereki : Director, producer, additional camera and editing
Tim White : DOP, producer, primary editing, sound
Andrew Lees : Actor, mover, groover

ZetrOZ – Winner of yet2.com Step2Change Technology Competition

the great thing about working with yet2.com is that we get to see so many interesting new technologies.  Thousands of them.  A few really impress us.  One is  ZetrOZ and their revolutionary ultrasound therapy technology.  They took first place in yet2.com’s recent Step2Change Technology Competition last month.

Join us 19 July 2011, 11:00am EDT for a Webinar on ZetrOZ.

Register here for the webinar: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/812392706

yet2ventures Speaks at Forum for Consumer Product Entripeneurs

I had the pleasure of speaking at a forum for consumer product entrepreneurs 2 weeks ago in Radnor PA.  It was hosted by Connolly Bove Lodge & Hutz LLP, who did a great job connecting a rooms full of entrepreneurs with venture capitalists – tough to do in this climate.  It was great to see a law firm take such a leadership role in facilitating these kinds of connections.

A few key learnings?:

1. There is a lot less money chasing fewer consumer product start ups.  The West Coast VC bubble has not hit Philly yet
2. The VC’s have a high regard for sector knowledge/Rolodex, and basic ‘blocking and tackling’
3. Entrepreneurs are still not taking advantage of the Open Innovation offices in most major companies (these are your internal evangelists)

Here is a edited summary:

yet2.com’s 11th Annual Open Innovation Conference

We hosted our 11th annual Open Innovation conference in Boston 2 weeks ago.  It was a huge success.  We talked about; trends in innovation and best practices.  A few large companies presented their learnings and plans, a few small companies presented their breakthrough technologies and we had a few case studies…..and a personal favorite – we ate lobster.

In total, we had executives from 3 Continents, with a large group from Japan.  Some of the companies  participating included; Canon, P&G, Agfa, AirProducts, Applied Materials, AveryDennison, Baxter, Bayer, Clorox, Colgate,  DuPont, Ecolab, GSK, Kimberly-Clark, J&J, Kisco, Mellon, Nissan, Panasonic, Parker Hannifin, P&G, Ricoh, Sony, DSM, Invista and NASA!   Add to this, we had 2 dozen selected small companies, with breakthrough technologies.

     I liked the robust Q&A after each presentation.  When Canon’s CTO, Dr. Ikoma-san, presented, 4 other CTOs asked questions.  You cant beat that.  Some themes that emerged

1. Be ready for disruptive innovation from the bottom of the pyramid
2. Regional R&D, with Global Sourcing
3. Squash the immune response – accept ‘fuzzy data’
4. Enable personal risk taking
5. Engage ‘Renewal Searches’ – at the middle and the end of R&D

We spent a lot of time discussing how to optimize deals between large and small companies.  This has been a reoccurring theme are our events.  Even when there is a great technology fit, deals take more time than both parties would like.

Delaware Corporations – LLC Filings up to 82,027

Delaware has an impressive Chancery court, that has written most modern US corporation case law.  Last year, 76% of the IPOs were incorporated in Delaware.  Which is a key reason why 63% of the Fortune 500 are registered here.

I spent some time poking around the Delaware Division of Corporations website.  What I did not expect to find is leading indicators of economic recovery in the Annual Report.  LLC filings are up to 82,000, from 70,000 in ’09 and 81,923 in ’08.  This has good to be good news for economic recovery?

SEC Considering Adopting Crowd-funding Rules

I wrote a blog about Crowdfunding back in November (http://wp.me/pxRjC-kq).This article was Taken from Venture Beat and written by Dean Takahashi

The Securities and Exchange Commission may adopt rules to let internet-age technologies be used in fund-raising.

The agency is considering whether to let fast-growing companies use social networks such as Facebook and Twitter to raise funding by tapping thousands of investors for small amounts of money, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Where will web 3.0 take us?

This is an excellent article from VenturBeat and written by Anthony Ha.  It ties into a blog I wrote on the New Now.  A key mega-trend is wireless speed.

LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman presented his vision today for “Web 3.0” at the South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin.

Hoffman, who is now a partner at Greylock Partners, sounded dismissive of most of the buzzwords that have been tied to Web 3.0 — bandwidth, “appification”, video, location, real-time, and mobile. (He said mobile is probably the most significant trend of the bunch, but it’s “kind of boring”.) Instead, he said that the next big trend in the evolution of the Web, and the next big opportunity for entrepreneurs, is data.

Our Future – Through the Eyes of Corning

I love thought provoking renditions of what the future might be like.  This is a good example of how material science (and Corning) will likely play a role in our future – Ben