Morgo went very well.  Standing around in the warm sunshine at Waitangi with lots of exciting New Zealand companies.  The offshore speakers provide a great spark.  Bill Reichert from Garage Ventures was a popular speaker, and stayed around to lead a walking workshop on entrepreneurship on Saturday – where we ended up kayaking.  The Aconex founders provided an inspiration to follow.  Andy Scott delivered a great talk on the future of mobile, Catherine Mohr warned us not to watch the graphic images of robotic surgery, and Andy Lark gave yet another great talk, this time on networking in the current day.  The jetpack flew, although not a lot as the wind came up.  Look forward to seeing you all there next year.

Only a few days to go until Morgo.  After a normal amount of  chaos, teh programme is looking great.  The Martin Jetpack will be there and, weather permitting, will fly for us.  Particularly pleased to have some science speakers this year, headed by Catherine Mohr, a roboticist from Stanford.  It was only after we pitched her that we learned Catherine grew up in New Zealand.

Proacta’s lead compound, PR104, has entered Phase 2 clinical trials. This is an exciting milestone for the company. After showing signs of activity in early Phase 1 clinical trials – which establish how much of the drug can safely be administered, PR104 is now being evaluated in Phase 2 trials to test its efficacy for both liver cancer and lung cancer. These trials are being conducted in New Zealand, Asia, Canada, and the US. Results should be available by mid-2010.

No 8 Ventures co-led the Series A investment in Proacta five years ago, basing its investment decision on the increasing evidence that hypoxia (shortage of oxygen) is important in solid tumours and the world-leading intellectual property in this area developed by scientists at the University of Auckland and Stanford University, which formed the basis for the company.
For more, see www.proacta.com

Red Herring
today announced that OpenCloud was named a WINNER of the Red Herring 100 Europe, an award given to the top 100 private technology companies based in the EMEA  region each year.  More great news for this No 8 Ventures investee!

Check out the new flight video at www.martinjetpack.com!  More to come ….

At the Asian VC Journal Sydney conference a week ago, there was a lot of talk from the hard-pressed private equity guys – who have lost their bank leverage – about the great buying opportunities in the market now.  However, the real opportunity has to be in the venture capital end of the market, which never had any leverage and is busy building the companies of tomorrow.  The advice given to investors at the conference: If you have the resources, seek out:

• Emerging managers
• New strategies
• Less competitive markets

Sounds like No 8 Ventures!

Here’s Jenny’s quick take on venture capital in NZ from Radio NZ nine to noon.

We’re pleased to announce that Anthony Romano has joined the board of the Martin Aircraft Company.  Anthony is the former head of Luna Rossa’s 2007 America’s Cup syndicate, and prior to this was CEO of Calvin Klein Europe. His capability in building world class brands and his track record in developing businesses in the European market makes him an excellent fit within an already strong board.  In particular Anthony brings a real insight into the minds of the target customers for the Martin Jetpack – high net worth individuals with a sense of adventure.

Just spent an amazing few days at TED. Had the opportunity to present a new video of the Martin Jetpack – using the Alarmclock blog below as the lead in.
The best description I heard of TED is “that it is like going back to School, but having only the best lecturers and having only the best 20 minutes of each one’s course”. We were brought up to date on linked data (Tim Berners-Lee), crocheting a representation of quadratic space – and coral reefs, gecko feet, Shai Agassi’s astonishing electric car project, a brief history of surgery and much much more.

Compelled to comment on the post below from Alarm Clock which was taking a look at investment levels across start-ups developing robotics technologies.
“Venture capitalists tend to be fairly conservative people – despite their reputation for risk taking. Consequently, few robot-makers have received venture funding as many VCs put the likelihood of robot products succeeding on a par with anyone conquering jet-pack transportation”.
Well, not so at No 8 Ventures.  The Martin Jetpack hit world headlines in July this year.  What’s more, we are excited about the prospect of introducing a very cool robotics company soon.