June’s Rockies Venture Club (RVC) Meeting focused on the technology prospects for commercial space flight, referred to as Space 2.0. Before the panel discussion began the crowd was offered an introduction into new service for RVC members and two company pitches. Barrett Blank kicked of the evening hypothesizing that companies fail for two reasons: “lack of capital and lack of sales.” While the RVC has long focused on improving the former, Blank and his firm BeINVENTIV are trying to bring improved focus to the latter. The firm will be providing a customer relationship management system to the RVC and seminars on “Building a Sales Machine” to members who want to improve sales efforts in their own businesses.
Both companies offering pitches had more to say than would fit into their respective five minute time slots. Rustin Coburn pitched five year old DVLP Clothing, which is seeking additional capital for expansion including more inventory and production capacity. The company, which makes ski and snowboarding clothing and fashion lifestyle apparel, is based in Denver. Coburn sees this geography as an advantage because it enables the company to produce unique designs without getting caught up in the group mentality found in fashion centers like New York and Los Angeles. Other attractions to the DVLP brand are its high quality and the fact that 75% of its production is domestic with 20% being sustainable.
Jack Miller then provided an introduction into Efficient Power Corporation. Miller believes strongly that methanol is a real solution to the nation’s fuel crisis, and one that “makes financial sense”. Miller has an idea for bringing the refinery to the feedstock involving standard gasifier cells that would enable turning biomass into methanol. He ran short on time before providing further details on the specific plans of his company.
These brief presentations were followed by a panel discussion entitled “Space 2.0: The Entrepreneurial Frontier:” Participating in the panel were:
- John Metzger (Facilitator), Founder and CEO, Metzger Associates
- Gene Branch, J.D., Partner, Townsend and Townsend and Crew
- Burke Fort, Director, 8th Continent Project
- Paul Jerde, Director, Deming Center for Entrepreneurship at the Leeds School of Business
- Steve Murchie, Director, Keiretsu Forum Denver
Burke Fort began by providing a definition of what he means by Space 2.0, saying “aerospace derived technology that makes sense and makes money.” These Space 2.0 products span a variety of fields including biomedical, clean tech, location-based services, and power management. Fort is head of the 8th Continent Project designed to support the commercialization of this type of space technology through a variety of programs and an incubator. While Fort acknowledged that there can be a “giggle factor” from potential investors or partners who think space is the “bastion of the government” and “will never make money,” Fort believes there are many resources that have been undermined for years that are now ready for near-term commercialization. Murchie suggested that concerns over realistic time to market may be a large component of what causes investors to shy away from space related products because “more time equals much more money, which means dilution.”
Among examples of Space 2.0 companies currently in operation is flaik, a GPS locator service for use on ski mountains. Branch noted that this company was able to get to revenue generation – two large Colorado ski schools required flaik devices for all participants last year – on a couple million dollars of equity financing and using existing satellites rather than “burning through hundreds of millions of investors money to launch a satellite,” which is the way ventures attempting satellite phone service did 20 years ago.
The panel also delved into how Colorado might be able to capitalize on the increasing interest in Space 2.0 technologies. To this topic, the panel noted Colorado’s strength in the aerospace industry, employing the second most people of any state and the most per capita. Jerde commented that it is important for a state to work to “develop programs that align with its existing strengths,” which make space a logical industry for Colorado in a similar manner to clean technology.
Rockies Venture Club (RVC) was one of the first non-profit organizations in the country to help entrepreneurs launch and manage high-growth potential companies. Founded in 1985, RVC is the Rocky Mountain Region’s premier networking organization that connects entrepreneurs, service professionals, investors, venture capitalists and other funding sources.
