MTB @ Forum Televisione Digitale

This is a 3mts introduction of Mind the Bridge (business plan competition and Gymnasium) for the "Forum Europeo Televisione Digitale", pan-european event on digital TV, taking place today in Lucca.



The organizers, in particular Andrea Michelozzi, have been doing a great job in endorsing our project.
As a result, we now expect a lot of good ideas on digital TV and the likes...

Lessons on Leadership: Innovation

One of the most interesting sections on the online version of the Wall Street Journal is "Lessons on Leadership", short video interviews in which well-know business leaders share their wisdom on interesting topics.

The following videos address one topic that is of extreme interest for the Mind The Bridge community : Innovation.

Steve Ballmerr (CEO of Microsoft): How to drive Innovation.


Craig Mundie (Chief Research and Strategy Officer at Microsoft): How To Fuel Innovation.



Richard Sandor (SEO of the Chicago Climate Exchange): How to Encourage Creativity.


Alan Mulally (CEO of Ford): Driving Innovation.


More videos can be found here. Feel free to share your thought or findings on Innovation by writing us at blog@mindthebridge.org.

How The Stimulus Package Is Getting Silicon Valley Greentech Start-Ups Off The Ground

Guest post by Fabiana DiPaola
The “Green New Deal”
Whether it is Alan Salzman special host at last week World Business Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen, or Paul Holland accompanying President Obama to present the new Energy and Technology Research budget for FY2010, Silicon Valley cleantech community and leading venture capitalists are front and center of the debate over clean and renewable energy. And it’s not by chance that Steven Chu, the new Energy Secretary appointed by Obama, comes from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the oldest of the U.S. Department of Energy's National Laboratories. Washington is turning its attention and consequent financing to green technologies and by all means Silicon Valley cleantech ecosystem is well placed to reap benefits from the new federal and state incentives in an attempt to find a way out of the financial crisis, curb energy consumption, decrease energy dependency and ultimately fight global warming.


The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, passed last February 2009, pours over $65 billion into renewable energy, energy efficiency and greentech financing of which 6.5 billion for R&D. It is a real “Green New Deal”: The most significant effort in public spending in science and technology after the launch of the Apollo Program. And «it only costs the equivalent of a couple of months in Irak» as a blogger commented on the New York Times website. A big part of these dollars is already profiting Silicon Valley start-ups and research centers, which are leading the way through future technological development. So, if Washington is looking towards Silicon Valley, it is also true that, surprisingly enough, for the first time Silicon Valley is looking East, towards Washington money. Lately, law firms have been organizing seminars around the Bay Area to explain to cleantech start-ups and the venture capital community the Recovery Act. The economic crisis has hit many Bay Area start ups and renewable energy companies that are now suffering from the loss of tax equity buyers (including AIG, Lehman Brothers, Wachovia, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo) and vc are becoming more selective due to a decrease in the amount of funding they can raise per financing round.

The most important incentives deployed by the Stimulus Package are the following:

• A large sum for energy efficiency, including $5 billion for low-income weatherization programs; over $6 billion in grants for state and local governments; and several billion to modernize federal buildings, with a particular emphasis on energy efficiency.


• $11 billion for “smart grid” investments.


• $3.4 billion for carbon capture and sequestration demonstration projects (also known as “clean coal”).


• $2 billion for research into batteries for electric cars.


• $500 million to help workers train for “green jobs.”


• A three-year extension of the “production tax credit” for wind energy (as well as a tax credit extension for biomass, geothermal, landfill gas and some hydropower projects).


• The option, available to many developers, of turning their tax credits into direct cash, with the government underwriting 30 percent of a project’s cost.

For more details, I found the DSIRE database very useful to navigate the complex space of federal and state incentives for renewables and efficiency. You can also visit the many websites of US law firms with a cleantech practice. For instance Cooley Godward Kronish in Palo Alto has recently launched a new cleantech stimulus portal.

What’s In For Italian Companies?
It is worth looking into the details of the plan for Italian cleantech companies willing to invest in the US market. Even if many of the provisions are accessible only to American companies for the « Buy American » clause, this is true only if the spending relates to public works or public procurements, seeking to ensure that only U.S. iron, steel, and manufactured goods are used in infrastructure projects. In addition, waivers can be issued to U.S. federal departments should the department head believe the Buy American provisions are not in the "public interest." Some waivers have already been issued for instance by the Environmental Protection Agency. Moreover, the Buy American restrictions can be avoided by opening a subsidiary or a production plants in the US. Some European front-runner green energy companies have already made the strategic decision to invest in the US and in Silicon Valley. This gives them a competitive advantage in the rush to cash in on stimulus money. For instance, with an investment in Noventi Ventures - a Silicon Valley-based cleantech venture capital fund - Sorgenia has opened a window on the US market and on the most promising clean technologies developed in Silicon Valley. Not only the stimulus funds are benefiting Noventi portfolio companies, but Sorgenia is already exploring further direct investment opportunities in renewable energy projects, such as wind and solar power.

What Are the Silicon Valley Based Companies Tapping Into The Stimulus Package?

Renewable Power Generation : Thin Film Solar photovoltaic
Solyndra is the first company to receive an offer for a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) loan guarantee within the Stimulus Package. Solyndra, a Fremont, California-based manufacturer of innovative cylindrical photovoltaic systems using thin film technology, will use the proceeds of a $535 million loan from the U.S. Treasury’s Federal Financing Bank to expand its solar panel manufacturing capacity in California. Also in the thin-film sector, Heliovolt is looking into the Stimulus Package for the development of its technology and production capacity. It is a CIGS thin-film PV panel manufacturer that uses a fraction of semiconductor material used in traditional silicon cells, significantly slicing costs while at the same time achieving performances comparable to traditional silicon cells.

Transportation: Electric Cars and Biofuels
Tesla Motors, Inc. is awaiting word on a $350 million loan application to the Department of Energy that would allow the electric carmaker to build the Model S sedan, which is expected to cost $57,400. Tesla is a Silicon Valley automobile startup company focusing on the production of high performance, consumer-oriented battery electric vehicles. In the biodiesel space, Aurora Biofuels uses proprietary technology developed at the University of California at Berkeley, to produce biodiesel feedstock from microalgae. Based in Alameda, California, Aurora’s technology achieves yields that are 100 times higher and at significant lower costs than traditional bioethanol production methods.

Energy Efficiency:
Serious Materials, a leading sustainable building materials company based in Sunnyvale, CA, announced that it fully supports the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act energy efficiency provisions. “We are already opening plants to meet the Recovery Act demand and hiring what may be hundreds of workers this year.” The company’s products such as SeriousWindows and SeriousGlass can reduce heating and cooling energy costs by up to 50%. Under the Recovery Act, homeowners can receive federal tax credits for “qualified energy-efficient improvements,” which include windows, doors and skylights. The new tax credits are for 30% of the cost of eligible products up to a limit of $1,500.

Efficiency of Infrastructures: Smart Grid Management Systems
Lumenergi, Inc., a Newark, CA based start-up is emerging rapidly in a space populated by large corporations. Lumenergi manufactures advanced and price-competitive dimming electronic ballast for fluorescent lighting that, combined with a proprietary lighting control system, is able to achieve energy savings in the order of 70%. In addition, Lumenergi’s system is Demend Response ready, allowing utilities to save energy at peak loads. This provides a huge opportunity as lighting accounts for 23 percent of all electricity consumption in the U.S. and 50 percent of electricity used in high-rise buildings. Coupled with rebates and grants that are increasingly being offered by utilities or state energy offices, Lumenergi estimates that a customer could get a return on their investment in only two years.
With billions of dollars from the Recovery Act flowing into smart grid investments, pushing utilities towards efficiency, and funding energy efficiency retrofits of commercial and governmental building, Lumenergi and other technology start-ups in Silicon Valley are getting organized to make the most out of federal and state funding.

Investors and Entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley

Guest post by Enrico Beltramini.

Silicon Valley (SV) is known for technological innovation and business model. Examples of technological innovation are the browser (Netscape), the search engine (Google), and the social network (Facebook); examples of business model are the Reverse Market, the Disintermediation, and the Long Tail. Before a geographic place, SV is a space of experimentation, the collective project of a new grammar of business. It has been built slowly over a few generations, and found maturity in the second half of the Nineties. Along with technological innovation and business model, there is a third element which has marked the history of SV and influenced its evolution. This element is less known of the other two, but certainly it is equally determined to make SV be successful. This element is the relationship between investors and entrepreneurs.


In a strict sense, the investor is someone who invests in a company. In SV this definition translates into a high risk investment commitment. For this reason, SV became almost 50 years ago the home of a specific form of investment, and competence as well: Venture Capital (VC). History tells us that the first VC was Arthur Rock, a little boy more than twenty years old, a law degree just awarded, a single customer, and five friends wealthy. He put this together in half an hour and managed to collect 5 million and fund the spin-off of eight researchers from Shockley Semiconductor. Thus the Fairchild was born. Fairchild then generated dozens of other companies, eight of them were born from five founding companies: Amelco, Signetics, National Semiconductor, Advanced Micro Devices - AMD - and Intel. Intel and AMD wrote the next chapter in the history of SV.

Since then, whether in times of economic growth than in a recession, two times a week the members of one of hundreds of circles of investors in SV are seated around the table and attend the presentation of business plans from entrepreneurs in need of funds. Fifteen minutes per presentation, four and a half hours for fourteen presentations (including breaks). Journalists imagine fabled meeting rooms where investors build the fortune of the new big, big thing, i.e., start-up that literally invented a business based on a service or product radically new. This is probably true for venture capitalists like John Doerr, a partner of Kleiner Parkins (office at Sand Hill Road, the road of VC) which financed Amazon, Compaq, Google, Intuit, Netscape and Symantec (in strict alphabetical list). For the founders of start-up, receiving a few million dollars from VC as Benchmark Capital, which has built a reputation financing eBay, or Dick Kramlich of New enterprice Associates, or Glenn Muelle of Mayfield Fund, is how to obtain a degree from Stanford or MIT: a road to heaven made possible thanks to the credibility, success and reputation that are provided by these names. These people increase the valuation of the ventures where they invest just by their presence. For most entrepreneurs, however, meetings like these are simply a dream, since they are financed by less known VC, or not funded at all.

Together with the investor, at the heart of the ecosystem of SV there is the entrepreneur. A special type of entrepreneur. He or she is the one who promotes the attack of large corporations despite the presence in the Valley of big companies such as Apple, Cisco, Google, HP, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, Yahoo! (in strict alphabetical order). From the mission to the strategy, passing through managing people, promoting innovation, developing technology, everything in the start-ups seems to be built right in the sense of overturning the traditional approach of the large corporation which sees in the management of the company the key technology. Given this emphasis on managerial work and competence that large corporations have spread and that now pervades the entire community of business, the entrepreneur offers a different perspective. To be an entrepreneur in SV is an anthropological rather than institutional form of life. It is a vocation rather than a profession.

The balance of power in SV between investors and entrepreneurs has reversed only recently. Until the mid-Nineties, investors took a large share of the society in which they invested, and often the operational control. The role of the entrepreneur - once investors were in - was marginal. Entrepreneurs of the new economy reverses this system. They explained that investors do not understand how a company works, they do not have the passion to drive them, and above all have too short term plans. Investors have to finance companies, not to guide them. Thus the figure of the entrepreneur - investor, who retains control of his or her own company even when the investors finance it, was born. Today, establishing a new company does not require the huge funds of the past. As it is possible to start-up with a few hundred thousand dollars, the role of VC is less important than it was in the past.

The Bridge starts at Insubria University

Thanks to Alberto Onetti (professor of Economy, director of CrESIT, and among other stuff, CFO of Funambol) MTB has been the fil-rouge of cycle of cycle of CrESIT conferences around innovation.
First the energetic 2008/9 finalist Massimo de Santis (FreePackNet) , then the expert Matteo Daste (corporate lawyer, MTB board member) and then me, fired up the attentive students of Uni Insubria, Varese.

Here is some press coverage
Marco, Matteo, Massimo

As part of the 2009/10 plan, we expect to have a whole lot more of such activities. Stay tuned….

MtB 2009/10 - The Race is Open!

Since May 25^th, the Mind the Bridge 2009/10 cycle is up and running. The deadline to submit your business plan is Aug 25^th.

You know the rules. We are looking for highly innovative startups, focused on a global market, with high growth potential.
A dozen of the semifinalists will be invited to present during the Venture Camp event in November . The selected projects will go through several months of mentoring that will culminate with a Silicon Valley road show.
Some of the selected projects will be offered to join the Gym, where the entrepreneurs will be able to build their muscles in the heart of the Silicon Valley.

Need some advice?
VC Evaluation, How to write a BP, Tips from Entrepreneurs, How to present to a VC

Innovello - Italians and together?

What happened a few days ago in Venice passed mostly unnoticed by the main media channels (surprise surprise…)

For the first time ever in Italy, a number of organizations representing over 130,000 companies signed a deal to work together on a one-stop portal gathering all relevant information around startups and innovation in Italy. It’s called Innovello and it’s orchestrated by Massimo Colomban and Emil Abirascid.

As Mind the Bridge foundation we applaud the effort as the first real attempt an umbrella organization that can coordinate all the major initiatives to promote Italian entrepreneurship. Therefore, we decided to be among the first organizations to sign the memorandum with the hope that the one-stop portal about Italian innovation would be just the first step to align several local efforts that today barely talk to one another.

Let’s be clear: the fundamental problem that needs to be solved is the following:

The international investment community thinks that the Italian startups scenario sucks, generally speaking. We are in this initiative to work together to change this perception. We expect that the portal will be the first step towards an umbrella organization, P4G style, able to represent and coordinate the next century Italian innovation in a global setting.

Here’s our press release for the event.

Attending TechGarage ....

Last Friday I attended the TechGarage event in Rome.
Rome was unusually hot outside (I mean, 30+ degrees) as it was the atmosphere inside the impressive Luiss' event room.

I had been invited to participate as part of the jury for the selection of the best project. I was positively impressed to see around me all the usual suspects of the Italian startup world.
That also included the mythical Elseverino Piol (arguably the first Italian VC) and Franco Bernabe', Telecom Italia CEO, presenting his Working Capital project.

Even our friend Saeed Amidi, Plug&Play CEO (where our GYM is located) was there, admiring the surrounding fresco.
Great attendance, I thought.
The startup pitches went on smoothly, although, in general, with the usual debatable presentation skills (no surprises there). That, together with the lack of previous information (how about a copy of the business plan?), made the judging process pretty challenging.
At the end, the winner of all prizes, was Criticalcity, a no-profit project aimed at urban collaborative gaming.
Although the no-profit positioning of the project seemed more of a principle of the founders rather than a lack of monetization options, apparently they were able to raise there, right on the spot on the winner stage, the 100K EU they were looking for, finding 10 donors among the audience.
Here is their pitch.


To me, that was a further prove that:
1. tangible passion, is what really makes the difference, and they show lot of it
2. there's a particular attention for projects marketed for the good of the community rather than an improbable money machine.

Further validation that the Mind the Bridge project should blossom!

Last but not least, the MtB-ed Eris4 got the second position, in practice the real startup business winner.
Augusto did a great job in presenting, showing that our efforts during his 2 months in Silicon Valley really paid off! The judges that were sitting close to me had an hard time believing that was the same project that presented in Venice 9 months before.
Well done Eris4, we now expect more successes from you.

Tally Up MtB 2009

Guest post by Tara Kelly, president and co-founder of 2009 MtB finalist Passpack.

It's been about a week since I've been back off the MtB roadshow. The question I've been asked most often is: "how was it?" The short answer: great! How great? Well, here's some hard data for you.

Thanks to the MtB and BAIA crews, I was able to:

• Get meetings with 2 VCs, and 1 potential corporate partner. To put that in context, I was also able to get one meeting on my own... but I've been working on it since October! Three meetings in one week is mind boggling.
  
  
• Present Passpack to a room of about 80 people, from VCs to Angels, to corporate biz dev folks. And I also got to mingle with them before and afterwards. Some cards were exchanged, and another meeting will likely follow.
  
  
• Q&A with service providers and pick their professional brains about corporate law, accounting and getting work visas for my team to come to the US (should we so choose). I actually walked away with information thats probably worth plenty of dollars had I paid those folks.
  
  
• Brush up on my presenting skills and get coached on how to act in corporate America. Even though I'm American born, my adult life has been entirely in Italy. It was fun taking lessons from an Italian on how to handle a meeting in the Valley (thanks Elisabetta!).
  

All of that can be quantified, whether in terms of number of contacts, or dollar value of services offered. But the biggest value from this experience is, frankly, the network.

The network is the glue that keeps a startup ecosystem together. Anyone who knows me, knows I'm a big preacher about building your network and sharing with other entrepreneurs. For Passpack, and I hope for the other startups, MtB was a chance to expand that network... both inside and outside of Italy.

Thanks to Marco, Fabrizio, Elizabetta, Matteo an the rest of the crew -- and good luck to next years participants. If you need a hand with anything, just reach out and ask.

___

Tara

Zooppa is the winner!

In an unusual cold and rainy evening in Sunnyvale (CA), the MTB Gran Finale got to its apax.
The startup-impressive ambiance of the Plug&Play Tech Center in Sunnyvale, filled up by 6.30PM with an interesting mix of somewhat-Italian-related professionals, professional Silicon Valley investors, and startups representatives from multiple corners of the world (with a high concentration from India)...

And the participants didn't get disappointed. Italian style food&drinks (and free), the right group of people and ... some amazing startups!
The presentation level of all participants was on par with the energy that all the MTB volunteers put on the table in the last few weeks... meaning, awesome!

After an impressive delivery of well structured (and all within the 7 min time limit!) presentations, the jury nominated (unanimously) Zooppa as the winner of the 2008/9 BP competition.
Wil Merritt, from Zooppa, brought home a nice plaque, a bunch of compliments and a great deal of expectations from everybody.

What matters now, is who will be the first of the 6 presenting projects, to reach the $1B bar as a business.

The race just started.

But for the moment, let us just savour our Italian made tiramisu, at a bit of glory for the new Italian-generated technology!