Golden Horseshoe Venture Forum - Green Energy Companies - Synopsis

Wednesday morning was the kickoff breakfast of the season for GHVF.  The featured companies are all in the "Green Energy" space.

First up was Gordon Presher of Solar Sentry: They have a product that monitors the solar arrays in a solar farm to ensure they are operating properly. Currently, monitoring is normally done only at the inverter.  By monitoring the physical arrays problems which may lead to a degradation of 5% to 10% can be found and resolved, thereby leading to an overall increase in sunlight to electricity conversion.  Looking for $650K to keep the ball rolling in the form of a convertible debenture.

Next up was Goran Miljkovic of Venti-Tech:  Goran has designed a new wind-turbine that works at low wind velocities and is suitable for placement on homes and small office buildings.  He needs some money, $50K, to take the lab stage prototype to a working field unit.  He'll also need some marketing, manufacturing, and sales help.

Lastly, Bruce Magwood from CLNTCH Capital Corp. spoke about his boutique finance firm.  They basically syndicate money from investors across one or more renewable power projects.  No details on how small an investor they will accept nor what the financing structure will be: investment corporations or trusts, or something else altogether. Might be a good way to diversify a portfolio into the renewables space.

If you are interested in any of these opportunities drop me a note.

Silcon Halton Meet-Up #11

Last week I attended my second Silicon Halton meet-up. It was an un-meetup, in that it followed an Open Space meeting format. At the beginning of the (un)meetup, participants were given the opportunity to suggest a topic of discussion which were then voted on by everyone. The following six topics were put forth:

1. Entry into the US market
2. Facilitating the hiring process
3. Improving the Silicon Halton business directory
4. Should we use the Open Space format (my suggestion)
5. Digital Receipt product concept
6. Geo-Fencing Silicon Halton

The vote came in and the first four topics were chosen for discussion.  You can read a summary for each discussion by following the links.