Cool News/Map Mashup

Jeff Clavier's recent post turned me on to What's Up a news map project developed by Jeroen Wijering. I've been looking into a variety of data visualization mashups and this one is quite elegant. I'm not sure it helps us cut through information overload, but it "feels good" -- kinda like the slick but almost useless Orb.

You can launch it here.

Seen any other cool data mashups, particularly using Google Earth?

[brog] The Future of Audio Search is Here!

One of my portfolio companies, CallMiner, just announced a grid-based indexing platform that will forever change how audio is mined in the enterprise, government and internet. The historical battle between processing power and audio indexing has been decoupled by CallMiner's Virtual Server Room (VSR) platform, allowing for higher accuracy and virtually eliminating hardware constraints for speech analytics and audio search. [Not to mention finally harnessing grid with a business model, sorry SETI]

What does this mean for speech analytics?
It means that enterprises who weren't mining 100% of their contact center recordings because of the hardware burden can now unleash the business intelligence hidden in every one of their customer calls. When customers are saying "competitor X does this better", "I would pay more for your product/service if it did Y" or even "I'm going to switch to competitor Z because your customer service sucks"; enterprises can now know and react to those comments "on the fly". With all of the effort/dollars plowed into CRM/BI systems, shouldn't the single largest customer datapipe in an enterprise (their call center recordings) be tapped to deliver immediate value? Absolutely and VSR makes that a reality for all...

What does this mean for audio search?
It means that other datapipes of audio can also be unleashed -- think audio.google.com for podcasts, vlogs, other internet audio files and possibly even VoIP. Today's internet search engine approaches for audio come in three varieties:

1) search engine X says "it's too hard, I'll forego that market until it's too late to catch up",
2) they search audio/video transcripts (e.g. commercial broadcasts) and thus miss the mountain of audio being created as part of Web 2.0 or
3) they try to search true audio but fail on accuracy, speed or reach, and watching their "files mined" ticker is like watching grass grow as they index slower than new files are being created.

The only long-term solution is mining audio on a massive scale, but there are thousands if not millions of very large audio files hitting the net weekly. Today's server/hardware-intensive solutions are broken. The battle between accuracy and processing power must be solved -- hello VSR.

What does this mean for CallMiner's competitors?
They can become partners. VSR is a processing platform, architected for audio -- with the potential to decouple hardware constraints for other audio search/mining engines. Entrepreneurs/VCs often look to change the world and VSR does that for CallMiner and others in the search/analytics space...

If I sound pumped, it's because I am. The CallMiner team's proprietary innovation heralds a new age of speech/audio mining and I'm just glad to be along for the ride...

Thanks for indulging this brog (brag by blog) -- I save it for only the really good stuff...

Hydrogen, ethanol and water, Oh my!

Rob, Mr. CleanTechVC, gave a nice rundown of last week's Cleantech Investors Summit -- see Cleantech Investing: Notes from Palm Springs.

As you'll see from Rob's post, cleantech is heating up in venture circles and Florida has a lot to contribute to the party. Whether we're talking clean water or solar, hydro, ethanol or other energy alternatives Florida research is right in the thick of it. Take for example UF's Lonnie Ingram discovery and patent #5,000,000 of genetically modified E. coli bacteria that converts almost any biomass (not just the expensive corn/sugar crops) into fuel. After a couple misfires, Ingram's technology has been licensed by BC International and funded by the other Mr. CleanTechVC Vinod Khosla. In Vinod's words:

"I only invest in state-of-the-art technology. This is the next frontier."

Vinod is playing the energy field via his own fund Khosla Ventures rather than KP's, but the Florida endorsement is worth paying attention to. We have good, clean stuff in our labs and now is the time for show and tell.

If you've got a solution to dirty/expensive energy or a way to find/filter/distribute clean water, I want to know. If your friend or the nut in your incubator collects the tenant garbage to fuel their car, I'd like to meet him/her. Maybe, with a little capital, value-add and luck, Florida will be the home of next year's Mr. CleanTechVC...

Bonus question: who can guess what's in the diagram above?

FVCC 2006, Day 3: Panels, Presentations, and a Sneak Peek

- Venture Capital State of the Industry: Mark Heesen of the NVCA, as usual, brought a mound of stats and declared the state of the venture industry was good with growing company and fund investments. The majority of funds either raised in the last 24 months or will in the next 24 months. The panel was a bit sedate (at least compared to bio) but all participants brought some nuggets of wisdom.

Themes: more early-stage investing will come with new funds being raised, Florida is getting a lot of attention from outside funds, funds are syndicating with FL/non-FL synergies, more talk about services than I usually hear.

Nifty nugget: west coast VCs talking about simplified devices for the masses, but particularly seniors -- think FireFly for grandma.

- Presentations: no blow-by-blow, see prior post for "Best of Show"

- Bio and Life Science State of the Industry: Great panel moderation by Jeff Clark of Aurora Funds on a panel that went deep on bio lingo. Donny Strosberg from Scripps Research was a fresh new voice in the region who should win a lot of supporters for a biotech incubator near Scripps' ultimate location.

Themes: new treatments actually curing disease not symptoms, personalized medicine (at high price points) continuing to grow, bio taking a long time (5+yrs) but better not take too long (8+yrs), Florida as bio-hub coming but requires more research, capital and entrepreneurs (Jeff told us these guys were smart)

Best question: pretend you are Jeb, how do you make it happen for Florida? Trick question because Jeb announced Tuesday a major new tech/research/development/venture program that was hinted at in earlier news articles. The Governor's plan probably isn't perfect, but will make a major impact on Florida's entrepreneurial ecosystem -- if Florida's legislature can see the vision. The panel response by Will Brooke of Harbert wins my "Best Panelist" KangaRua for shear inspiration and believability -- Will's got a future in politics.

- Post-FVCC Sneak Peek: After the show, huddled in a small, nondescript conference room, seed/early-stage life science investors got a peek behind the curtain at some of Florida's life science research engines. Presenters from UF, Moffitt, UMiami and even Mayo were on hand to provide a sneak peek at what's coming for cancer diagnosis, differentiated tumor treatment, periodontitis diagnosis, drug delivery, asthma treatment and others. Because of our university relationships, I'd seen many of these technologies but they stepped it up for this forum. I especially liked the opportunities where an entrepreneur was coupled with the inventor/scientist, and look forward to watching these companies mature into the next generation of Florida Venture Capital Conference presenters...

So that's it...I hope you enjoyed it and feel free to comment with any of your FVCC 2006 observations!

FVCC 2006, Day 2: The Big Day of Panels and Presentations (at least those I saw)

- Valuations & Raising Money Panel: nothing too juicy, raising money is hard but getting better and valuing early-stage technology companies is art, science & voodoo.

- Seed, Angel and Early Stage Investing: I participated as the early-stage VC on this panel with a good mix of angels, angel group coordinators and individuals. Themes from that panel included be passionate, get early-adopter customers/references, and expect many "early-stage" venture funds, (not Inflexion) to require $2-3M in revenue before backing you. Al Rossiter of Springboard Capital provided a list of state angel funds, Brian Javeline shared his story of proving doubters wrong by bootstrapping, Peter Hairston emphasized a "change the world" attitude and Rich Swier shared a great analogy during and after the panel on constantly bailing out your "bucket of risk" (e.g. management, market, technology) until investors pull out their checkbooks.

- Lunch Keynote, Brian Swette: Former P&G, Pepsi and eBay COO (and smooth golfer). Brian came across as a great operator/marketer who grew up in a rich P&G farm system. He's a guy that could help a lot of young (or big) companies. His biggest test was when someone asked him about the soundness of eBay's multi-billion dollar purchase of Skype -- his answer: eBay has driven a ton of value out of their past high-priced acquisitions (e.g. Half.com, PayPal).

- Company presentations: The "Best of Show" KangaRua (picture a small golden kangaroo statue) goes to Visible Assets for a solid presentation and great booth demos. Jay Pierce is a tenured operator that we'll be spending a lot more time with. Honorable mentions go to later-stage presenter RecruitMax who seems to have built a strong business with a stable of blue-chip customers and MAKO Surgical (Day 3 presenter) for a revolutionary approach to joint replacement. The "Most Passionate Entrepreneur" KangaRua goes to Ren Mohan of Intelligenxia/IxReveal -- get that guy a throat lozenge. Proximities got a lot of attention from my peers, but I can't start my awards with an Inflexion company, can I?

- Dinner w/Capitol Steps: I saw the Capitol Steps many times when I managed a DFJ fund near DC and they were as good as ever Tuesday night. Their ability to absorb current events, wrap them in humor AND deliver them by music/song is thoroughly entertaining.

- Fireworks & Island chip: The fireworks were a great addition to the conference -- let's do it every year. My chip to the Island green was closer the most (5-10 ft), but the prize Nazi was only awarding for a hit. I heard that the only island hits were on second shots after a shank -- no prize for those either??

...more to come...