Check out this video that captures some of the highlights of Morgo 2009. The 2010 conference, with a theme of Taking Calculated Risks, is shaping up to be another great two days.

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.

Surveylab and the ikeGPS product is having a real impact on the GPS handheld market. This review by Don Jewell, the editor of GPS World, is worth a read. We particularly liked his summary: ‘for their specific purpose they are certainly the best GPS devices I have ever seen or used, and the degree with which they can be upgraded and customized seems to be endless. The ike GPS is a range of devices our warfighters need to have .. now, and devices that our firefighters and police departments and other organizations could benefit from as well. I look forward to hearing…about all the uses and in what circumstances they have employed the capabilities of this incredible GPS-based device.’

It’s amazing how even when you’ve been around in this small market for years, you keep getting wonderful surprises about the major development projects people get up and running on their own.  We’re finding lots of kiwis developing cool new products.  The big issue for us is helping to grow these into successful businesses.  There’s still almost no institutional money in venture capital in New Zealand.  If you know of an institutional investor who could be interested, let us know!

Congratulations to the finalists announced last week for the 2007 NZ Hi-Tech Awards.  It’s a great list of finalists that comprises some of the most dynamic organisations and individuals in the NZ tech sector.  As a first time committee member for the event, and having only recently returned to NZ, the breadth of innovation represented across a near record number of entries was impressive stuff.  Here at No 8 Ventures we’re pleased to see OpenCloud on the shortlist for both the Innovation and Deal categories, a company that has already been recognised in 2007 by winning the international Frost and Sullivan Awards for Product Differentiation Innovation of the Year. The awards night itself is just around the corner and is being held on Saturday 3rd November here in the capital. Looks like it will be a great night of entertainment coupled with the chance to celebrate some successes across the industry.  Hope to see you there!  .    

Smart Orthotics Limited, a company that is developing a robotic exoskeleton for disabled users, today announced that it has received venture capital funding from No 8 Ventures.  The new capital will be used to support further product development, production engineering and enable a release to market of their Robotic Mobility Aid for disabled persons.

“There have been dramatic advances in robotics over the past one to two years.” said Jenny Morel of No 8 Ventures. “We believe that Smart Orthotics is at the forefront of these technological developments and is building a great product that will serve a large and important unmet market need.”

Richard Little, CEO of Smart Orthotics Limited, said, “This investment by No 8 Ventures is a significant step forward for the company.  Smart Orthotics has spent three years developing the artificial intelligence and robotic systems that enable its ‘smart’ mobility aid to function and with this investment Smart Orthotics can now move ahead more rapidly in taking this product and functionality to the end user”.

Smart Orthotics Limited (SOL) is a New Zealand technology company that has designed and developed a ‘smart’ disability aid employing the latest robotic technologies.  Their robotic exoskeleton is worn on the lower limbs by a disabled person providing the user with a normal range of mobility functions including standing, sitting, walking, ascending and descending stairs and navigating sloping surfaces. Their vision for a robotic exoskeleton that restores mobility was prompted by the limitations of the wheelchair.

BusinessWeek has a terrific piece on how Web 2.0 is pulling the fragmented mass market together. It starts with a look at how we now allocate out attention – less on the media’s schedule and more on ours (”time” and “place shifting”).

Some nice quotes from Nike who are fully embracing communities with sites like Joga for soccer fans.

“Gone are the days of the one big ad, the one big shoe, and the hope that when we put it all together again it makes a big impact” – Trevor Edwards, vp global brand management, Nike.

A new report from Nielsen/NetRatings gives some interesting demographics of podcast listeners. Generalizations aside, the report has some interesting results – US data:

• 51.6% of people who listen to podcasts pay their bills online. But, podcasting is not yet nearly as popular as viewing and paying bills online, 51.6 percent, or online job hunting, 24.6 percent. 24.6% have participated in online job searches.

• 6.6% of adults have downloaded a podcast and the the 18-24 age range is twice as likely as the average adult to download podcasts.

• Apple users are more likely to download podcasts as Windows users. Audio and video podcasters are over three times as likely as the average Web user to use Apple’s Safari as their primary Internet browser.

Is Apple the platform of choice for the Web 2.0 generation?

One of the many advantages of sitting in Silicon Valley as a NZ VC is the networking opportunities. It is no exaggeration that every day affords you some opportunity to sit with potential customers and partners. This week it was breakfast with Rich Breunich, head of the Enterprise and Emerging Technology Group within Citigroup’s IT organization. There must have been about 50 start-ups at the event.

Rich was very clear than start-ups and smaller companies have a real opportunity to sell to Citigroup. He went on to say that they feel that most of the innovation will come from emerging companies. Saying that, don’t expect them to carve out a little corner for you to test in – you’ll have to operate at the level as all enterprise vendors.

Citigroup’s Emerging Technology Group is specifically designed to facilitate the adoption of new technologies. The message was clear – size doesn’t matter. Citigroup are one of the world’s largest software companies – they have more data under management than Google – almost three times more. So, breakthrough technologies matter, where they come from matters less. Look forward to chatting more about this at Morgo.

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