Digital Media Venture Capital Conference
Something really fascinating happened today.
We brought together Madison Avenue and Silicon Alley/Valley at our first annual The Media Kitchen Digital Media Venture Capital Conference (say that 4 times fast). Having spent the better part of my life building digital media startups, I noticed that there was a huge divide between what is happening in the garages and what’s happening in the plush offices of Madison Ave (Varick Street). Since Madison Ave relies on these emerging digital media companies and vice versa, I thought it would be extremely beneficial to bring various constituents together with dozens of brands (clients), press, agency folks, and funds/portfolio companies to sit through a bunch of inspiring presentations and collaborate with each other.
It all started at 8AM at the Tribeca Grand in New York, Union Square Ventures, DFJ Gotham, and First Round Capital spoke about their views on the digital media landscape and where they see it going. There were some extremely insightful comments and inspiring moments… Albert Wenger, partner of venture firm Union Square Ventures was talking about generational shifts and broke them down to, “people who dated before they had their first computer and those who had first computer before starting to date.”
After each venture firm spoke, there were two portfolio companies who presented. USV portfolio companies included Tumblr and Outside.in. DFJ Gotham portfolio companies included Izea and ContextWeb. First Round Capital companies included AppNexus and Pinch Media. Conversations and presentations centered around micropublishing platforms to Internet “plumbing” and social media platforms to iPhone analytics. Hearing from the CEOs/Founders of these companies added a touch of validation and inspiration.
Some great audience questions were asked at the end of the conference and there is one I’d like to highlight: one of the group directors at The Media Kitchen asked all of the presenters if there were any digital media companies who were trying to build sustainable businesses (or were doing real revenue) instead of trying to be acquired. I thought this was very interesting. When we hear of Silicon Valley and Alley based startups, we all wonder what the “exit” will be for that particular company. With close to $10BLN in M&A deals in 2007, we’ve come to expect quick acquisitions… but doesn’t building sustainable companies count anymore?
Lots more thoughts to come from this conference… look for articles/postings across the Internet as people start to blog about the event. Here is a recent posting by Allen Stern over at Center Networks about the videos of the event.