A big welcome to the first TechView Atlanta. A visual and entertaining weekly look at the Atlanta technology and entrepreneurial communities and the key players driving them.

Entrepreneurs and investors alike huddled up at the first Venture Atlanta event last week to mingle, network and do some deals (hopefully). No doubt, the conversation was dominated by the market, the credit crunch and the resulting impact those might have on the venture capital and startup market.

Around 450 folks attended Venture Atlanta 08, which was organized by the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, TAG and the Atlanta CEO Council.

“We’re thrilled by the response to this event,” said Allen Moseley of Noro-Moseley Partners (Chair of the event). “It’s an example of the community really pulling together to showcase entrepreneurs in this region. Despite the difficult economic climate, it reminds everyone of the entrepreneurial spirit that creates our next great companies.”

It’s Atlanta Chamber’s own David Hartnett and Venture Atlanta Executive Director Allyson Eman – all smiles with Cisco VP, Carlos Dominguez, a featured speaker at the event.  Carlos displayed some of Cisco’s latest telepresence technology at the Venture Atlanta morning session, with a video of a Cisco executive giving a keynote speech from his US office to a conference in Brazil – “walking” on the stage as a star wars like hologram interfacing real time with the audience. Technology that could also come in handy for some future in-law visits.

 
Atlanta Chamber of Commerce’s President Sam Williams, TAG’s President Tino Mantella, Noro-Moseley’s Allen Moseley, Keynote speaker Bernard Marcus (co-founder Home Depot and the money behind the Georgia Aquarium), the Chamber’s David Hartnett and Ashish Mistry of the Atlanta CEO Council. One of Atlanta’s most successful entrepreneurs, Bernard entertained the lunch crowd at Venture Atlanta with a little humor and political discussion. He quipped to the room of venture capitalists how an investor could have had 15% of Home Depot for a million bucks back in the day – which would be worth over $5 billion today…that would certainly beat our 401k return these days.

John Feltman with Atlanta’s Brookhaven Capital and Georgia Tech alum, Randy Poliner with Antares Capital, wheel and deal at the investor dinner held on the Atlanta Chamber’s roof top deck. There were an estimated 100 investors attending the conference representing 20 states. On day two, investors heard presentations from 20 Atlanta-area companies.

TechJournal South’s own Allan Maurer, Eric Gregg, Paul Grim from Ohio-based SunBridge Partners, TechJournal’s Scott Hedrick and SunBridge’s John Gannon discuss the silver lining of the resulting credit crunch. Many of the out-of-region investors attending, including Gannon and Grim, who invested recently in Charlotte based, Yap, expressed a strong interest in keeping up with deal flow in the Southeast. Considering that the majority of venture investments taking place in the southeast comes from outside the region, that’s certainly good news.
 
Photographs courtesy of Venture Atlanta and ByteGraph Creations.

© 2008 – 2009, TechView Atlanta. All rights reserved.