I got an invitation to attend the launch of MTech in Alberta, put on by the IP lawyers at Miller Thomson, last Friday. When I hear the name M-Tech, it reminds me of the Identity Management company in Calgary, which was bought by Hitachi a couple of years ago for a large sum of money. I wonder if the MT trademark lawyers here know that?

In any case, the event was well done, due to their clever positioning. By getting Randy Thompson (Venture Alberta, Argon Venture Partners) as the keynote speaker to present on Raising Venture Capital, it attracted startups that MT wanted to present their services to.

There was also a panel discussion on The Future of Commercialization in Alberta, with Ken Cudmore (Technology Strategies Group), Paul Cataford (UTI), Greg Shannon (Miller Thomson partner) and Mark Kornak (angel investor), which attracted various investor groups, AVAC and government representatives. I’d say the Miller Thomson people can’t be faulted for their marketing savvy.

Of course, for providing a great lunch and the venue, MT got to their pitch for their MTech programme and IP protection practice, which besides being fair ball, was a good primer and certainly worth learning for any new (and existing startup).

It was good content, and far too much to get covered in a single post. I’ll try to summarize:

* MTech is an initiative to get qualified startups into a programme to get comprehensive legal advice, and in return build loyalty for helping the startup in its infancy
* MTech has various ‘kits’ for various legal needs, from initial IP strategy to human resources agreements
* The startup will hopefully ‘graduate’ some day by growing and be a regular client for MT, or be phased out if they don;t grow within a reasonable time
* IP strategy is exactly that; strategy, with a plan, timing, and end objective - it’s not just to ‘file’
* IP can be used strategically to ward off competitors at the ‘right’ time, rather than too early or too late.

Randy’s presentation on Money and Venture is likely a post in itself. Suffice to say, it would be familiar to startups that are, or in the process of raising money. Randy’s had some great lines such as:

* What is the (VC) flyover zone? - Alberta, Sask, Manitoba
* You want to be selling the equivalent of morphine to drug addicts that need a quick fix to get VC interest
* Do you want to be Rich or King? Both answers are right but they don’t go together!
* ‘The worst (VC) meetings are scheduled for an hour but are done in five minutes’ (true story).

The panel was interesting with some good question and answer regarding the Alberta government’s stance on technology investment, given the state of the energy business currently. Will they or will they not, take this opportunity to really diversify the Alberta economy?

Kudos to the MTech team for being so un-boring, and to launching what appears to be a startup-friendly legal programme.

Check it out by clicking here if you’re interested.

I attended the Canadian Financing Forum in Vancouver last week, to get a feel for the venture capital industry in Canada, and especially given the current environment. Although I had some pre-conceived notions of what might be going on, I wanted to see for myself and share my observations from their panels, to talking individually with a few.

First of all, the opinions vary. Some VCs are downright pessimistic, regardless of what side of the border they’re from. The ones that are fully invested moreso, because they have companies that they have to perform triage on, to preserve capital to keep the better ones going. VCs with new funds (or at least money to invest) had a different point of view, in that it would be a good time to invest, especially in good early stage ones, because in the two years to get them going, things will have gotten better by then.

In fact for some, investing now with a team that has ‘conviction’ and good business sense seemed to be a strategic advantage, as many feel that VCs have over invested previously, breeding too many competitors. The slowdown to them was seen as a barrier to entry, and a good thing for their investments and would-be investments.

Software as a service was very big on the information technology side. I got the impression that if it wasn’t SaaS, that they weren’t interested. And not because of the technology, but because one thing they all did agree on was that we were in a ‘zero cap-ex’ environment. Companies are not spending on capital expenditures, whether it be software or equipment. And they are not interested unless the item was related to sales or a direct savings that could be realized very quickly. Research and development for these companies is on life support, and marketing is being curtailed to only those items that produce sales (rather than branding).

Other areas that were a bright spot included investments in entertainment and in products that help displaced workers find jobs, or to kill time while off the job. As one VC commented, ‘its not that hard to see what happening, so just go meet those needs’. Easier said than done, but worth noting.

There was a small Calgary contingent there, as this seemed to be more of a B.C. conference. I made a point of attending their presentations, and must say that on a per capita (number of presenters) basis, the Calgary companies made better pitches (in my opinion). There were too many presentations from others that rely on data, specs, and other information that can’t possibly be absorbed in 15 minutes. CTI and their EIRs, and pitch coaches like Pat Lor are to be commended for drumming that into us tech heads here.

One last note, the U.S. based VCs seemed pre-occupied. My guess is they are saving their powder for U.S. investments, if they were investing at all. Not that surprising, given the retrenchment but anecdotal data in any case.