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Bright ideas corner cash at venture capital forum

A record 200 firms are eager to invest in companies with profit potential.

By KRIS HUNDLEY, Times Staff Writer
Published January 30, 2008

ST. PETERSBURG - A guy who sells portable explosive detectors out of his garage in Pinellas County was looking for $2-million.

A software company in Tampa that has signed a partnership with IBM needed $5-million.

And a Tampa biotech company with a novel drug-delivery technology made its pitch for $15-million.

If the nation is in a recession, nobody told the 1,200 participants at the 17th annual Florida Venture Capital Conference being held this week at the Renaissance Vinoy Resort.

The two-day event, which started Tuesday, attracted a record 200 venture capital firms from across the country looking to invest in early- to late-stage companies. The stock market may be nervous, megamergers may be out of the question and bank lending may be tightening. But venture funds like the ones drawn to the statewide conference in St. Petersburg still have money to spend.

"There's a lot of capital in these funds looking for opportunities," said Don Blair, managing director at Raymond James investment bank. "The valuations will be more attractive to investors, but as long as sellers are willing to accept that, we should have an active year."

Matthew Lorentzen of Sea Venture Investments in Palm Beach said venture investors have such a lengthy time frame before they expect to see a return on their capital that the current economic situation in not particularly relevant.

"It'll be five years before we see our first exit," he said. "So this is not a cycle that affects us."

Venture investors pumped money into Florida companies last year at a rate not seen since 2001, with 63 companies landing $608-million, according the PricewaterhouseCoopers' MoneyTree report. Included in those deals were 18 of the 24 presenters at last year's Florida Venture Capital Conference, which attracted more than $125-million in investments.

This year, 23 companies are on hand to promote themselves, selected from among 360 applicants. The companies were given 12 minutes each to pitch to investors and ranged from a startup Web site for divorced women to a developer of micro unmanned air vehicles for the military.

Among the candidates from the Tampa Bay area was Field Forensics Inc., which licensed explosive-detection technology from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 2005. Craig Johnson, the company's founder and president, developed an easy-to-use, portable version of the detector.

The product is now used by U.S. and Spanish soldiers, cruise lines, airports and nuclear power plants to test for explosive residue on everything from hair to vehicles.

Other local presenters included computer software vendor Persystent Technologies and biotech firm Intezyne Technologies Inc., both of Tampa. Habib Skaff, Intezyne's chief executive, was confident as he sought the first round of institutional funding for his company's targeted drug-delivery technology. "There are always dollars in health care," he said.

But F. Scott Moody, chairman and chief executive of AuthenTec, a Melbourne maker of fingerprint sensor systems, warned entrepreneurs it would not be easy. Though his company has been successful, going public in June, he still remembers searching for investors after the technology bust.

"We were down to pennies in the bank," Moody said. "I'd get up in the morning, throw up and go to work."

Kris Hundley can be reached at hundley@sptimes.com or (727) 892-2996.

Who pitched from bay area?

- Field Forensics Inc., developer of portable explosives detectors

- Persystent Technologies, computer software vendor

- Intezyne Technologies Inc., developer of new ways to deliver drugs

Find out more

For more information, visit www.floridaventureforum.org.

[Last modified January 29, 2008, 22:44:35]