Want to invest? Why not consider global markets.

From Bevans Branham of Palm Springs, CA:

Every year, venture capitalists are asked about their thoughts regarding investing outside of their home country. It seems to make sense that these types of investments would be very lucrative, countries outside of America account for 86% of the users of top internet sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. Shouldn’t venture capitalists be tapping into this market as well?

Well, it turns out that many of these investors who spend so much time and money in their home country (usually Silicone Valley area) are very averse to investing in companies outside of the United States. What are some of the reasons that this is happening, and what can we do about it to ensure that we don’t miss the next big tech wave?

1) Home Bias

It shouldn’t be a huge surprise to anyone when I say that venture capitalists usually have a hometown bias. If you grew up, went to school, started your first company, and currently reside in an area like Silicone Valley or New York City it’s very likely that you’re going to think that companies and talent from that particular area is top-notch. This type of bias happens all the time (and not just with VC’s), so it’s no surprise that when it comes to spending money, VC’s are a little nepotistic.

2) Physical Proximity

If you’re investing in an early-stage startup it’s very likely that you’re going to want to be involved in many of the decisions that this company is going to be making. If it requires a 10 hour flight for you to get to a board meeting, this could be a major barrier to you being as effective with this company as opposed to one which is located in your hometown. Because of this, many VC’s don’t want to invest in potentially-good companies not located near them because they feel as though they won’t be able to help out as much as they’d like to.

Though there are these obstacles, this shouldn’t deter everyone from investing abroad. In fact, entrepreneurs all over say that Silicon Valley knowledge and expertise in places like China, Japan, Africa, and Mexico is in very high demand. If an investment company were able to secure locations in these areas it’s very likely that they would be a hit among the entrepreneurs of the area. Along with that, they would have the unique ability to invest in companies that Silicon Valley based investment firms would be too afraid to invest in. Hopefully these barriers will be eliminated in the near future so we don’t miss the boat on the big companies of the next 10 years.

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Music With a Message About Poverty

Art and activism have always had tangible histories. Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel, The Jungle, was a fictional work that changed the face of American labor . At the turn of the 20th century, Nellie Bly and fellow muckrakers used photography to shed light on poverty and poor working conditions, both in New York City and around the world.

And today we have the Global Citizen Festival.

An article was recently published in the New York Times entitled, “Music With a Message About Poverty.” In the article, author Nate Chinen explores the role that the Global Citizen Festival in New York City’s Central Park, has in making a difference.

The program, the author writes, was hosted in September, and for the second consecutive year drew a full crowd of 60,000. Focused on the mission of ending poverty in the world, the program is not only a behemoth musical concert, but an informational, powerful congregation, timed (no doubt for the symbolism) to coincide with the United Nations General Assembly and the annual gathering of the Clinton Global Initiative. Featuring artists like John Mayer, Alicia Keys, The Kings of Leon, and Stevie Wonder, the Festival brought national attention to issues that might otherwise be ignored or minimized.

Interestingly, Chipen told readers, most of those 60,000 tickets were not purchased, but rather earned. Anyone who wanted to attend the concert could register on the organization’s website, and rather than pull out their credit card, was prompted to complete tasks related to building awareness around the Global Citizen Festival’s primary goal, to end extreme poverty.

In his review, Chipen praises the artists for their meaningful lyrics and powerful presence, noting John Mayer’s timely performance of “Waiting on the World to Change,” and Alicia Keys’ strong presentment of the lyric, “I’m here to make a statement.” But most notable, he argues, was Stevie Wonder.

Poverty wasn’t the only issue on Wonder’s agenda, however. According to the article, he told the crowd, “We must do something about the gun laws in this country,” before diving into a cover of John Lennon’s quintessential reflection on idealism, “Imagine.”

According to the article, Wonder proclaimed to the crowd, “We are global citizens, we’re gonna change the world.”

via Bevans Branham Non-Profits & Humanitarian http://bevansbranhamnonprofit.com/music-with-a-message-about-poverty/

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Venture Capital Deals Jump 12% in Q3: Uber Leads the Way

From Bevans Branham of Palm Springs, CA:

Uber, a popular on-demand car service company, has a bit more cash-on-hand after this year’s third quarter investments.

According to an article posted on VentureBeat.com, Uber received $258 million in the third quarter of 2013, which made the organization #1 for venture capital raised in that time period; this in a market where over 10,000 startups received $7.8 billion in funding from venture capitalists.

The article goes on to break down VC spending by industry, but overall, the author writes, the market saw a 12% increase in investment from the second quarter, as well as a smaller increase when compared to 2012 numbers.

But the most important statistic, he argues, came out of the software industry, which received more investment money than in any quarter during the last 12 years. This record number manifesting in $3.6 billion in investments, which, according to the article, shows a 23% jump from the second quarter.

Why such a large increase? VentureBeat attributes some of the leap in funding to major deals such as $196.5 million for Palantir, a data analysis software company; $80 million for Clarabridge, which provides software to analyze unstructured data; $70 million for an organization called Deem, responsible for making business management software; and $65 million for Toa Technologies, a firm the produces mobile workforce software.

The article also discusses a report conducted by PriceWaterhouseCooper, The National Venture Capital Association, and Money Tree, in which Mark McCaffrey of PwC told reporters, “It’s an exciting time to be an entrepreneur with a software company… The continued increase in valuations for innovative and disruptive technologies in software-related companies, coupled with the increase in exit activity, is driving venture capitalists to make more investments in this space.”

And investors are even more optimistic about the future. According to the article, not only will 2013 investment numbers likely trump the previous year, but many of these investments, particularly in software fields, reflect early-stage funding. In other words, there’s good reason to believe the numbers will be on the rise in the near future.

“We are balancing this optimism, however, against the recognition that VCs are still trying to gain exits for the previous generation of companies,” John Taylor of the National Venture Capital Association told reporters. “There is some improvement on that front, but we would like to see it strengthen even further.”

Biotech was a distant second in terms of industries, the author writes, raising $852 million in the third quarter.

via Bevans Branham Venture Capital http://bevansbranhamvc.com/venture-capital-deals-jump-12-in-q3-uber-leads-the-way/

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Helping Save the World with Environmental Non-Profits

If you’re going to help the world, you deserve to be happy when doing it. It’s not what you’ll always get, but you do deserve it. If you’re not happy about the non-profit work environment you’re in or the non-profit work you do, you don’t have to continue working there. Believe it or not, there are many alternative organizations where your work can feel more fulfilling. Here are some great organizations to work for:

1.(Red)

(Red), headquartered in New York, is trying to give birth to the first aids-free generation by 2015.

Employees love working for the company because it’s partnered with countless iconic brands (like Apple, Coca Cola and Converse), whose priceless marketing advice has allowed (Red) to raise money and awareness for the Global Fund. It’s a company where charity and creativity has intertwined.

2.Charity:water

Charity:water, headquartered in New York, is trying to bring clean drinking water to people in need.

Everyday, employees are able to see the people they help. The offices are decorated with photos of the peoples whose lives the organization is changing. So every employee knows they’re making a difference.

3.Kiva

Kiva, headquartered in San Franciso, is trying to provide microloans to the world’s poorest people so they could go to school, develop businesses based on a product or service, and do anything that would help their local economies grows.

The company provides free massages, yoga, snacks and a monthly recess for its employees. The culture of having fun and caring for each other creates a positive environment that many discouraged people working for non-profits need to keep working.

When running a non-profit, the cause will not be enough to keep workers happy. Those workers are humans; they want to be creative, they want reassurance that their work has value and they want to have fun. If being in a non-profit gave people a better sense of value, maybe more smart and motivated people would work for them.

via Bevans Branham Non-Profits & Humanitarian http://bevansbranhamnonprofit.com/helping-save-the-world-with-environmental-non-profits/

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Venture Capitalist: Energy Storage for the Future

From Bevans Branham of Palm Springs, CA:

California passed a bill stating that one third of their total energy supply must be in the form of renewable energy by the year 2020. This bill has pushed major venture capitalists such as Peter Thiel and Vinod Khosla as well as major corporations like General Electric CO and Microsoft Corp to fund various different projects. Thiel and Khosla have invested money into compressed air as a means of energy storage. The idea works in tandem with windmills, energy is generated by the mills which are then funneled beneath the earth as compressed air. The compressed air is stored in a geologic storage structure, and when the air is needed it is funneled back to the surface and heated to produce electricity.

Energy storage is considered the “Holy Grail” as studies show that in California; grids have 51 gig watts of peak capacity for heat to boost air conditioning demand even when it only requires two thirds of that amount for the majority of the year. Unfortunately, the cost of building a battery substitute for the current natural gas powered plants is a major deterrent. Major storage companies such as A123 and Flywheel maker have already filed for bankruptcy. This doesn’t even account for the once available government subsidies which have since then run dry. However, the issue still remains that a substitute form of energy storage must be utilized by the year 2020. With venture capitalist funding the projects, the challenge becomes more business oriented which will hopefully promote the severity of the need for renewable energy.

via Bevans Branham Venture Capital http://bevansbranhamvc.com/venture-capitalist-energy-storage-for-the-future/

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Lindsay Branham – The Heart of a Humanitarian

Lindsay’s dynamic career as a humanitarian began early in her life. Before she completed her undergraduate work at USC in journalism, at spring break, she gathered a group of compassionate companions and flew to the beaches of Thailand to help rebuild some of the homes destroyed by the historic tsunami of December, 2004. Before she returned to Bankok to fly home, she gave away all her remaining money, forgetting that she owed airport tax. The generosity of an American businessman who overheard her telling the story, got her back safely.

That summer, after graduation, she volunteered to spend 6 weeks at an orphanage in Uganda. It was there, in a small village, that she met refugees from surrounding African countries, fleeing oppression and injustice, and first heard about the horrific abduction of children as young as 6 years to serve as “weapons of choice” and soldiers for the murderous madmen of the Lord’s Resistance Army.

She moved to Lake Kivu in the DRC to serve with the non-profit organization, Food for the Hungry as International Media Director, and became very familiar with the destruction and damage to not only the children, but to their families and communities.

Her heart ached to help, to heal, and to reconcile these innocents.

Discover the Journey:

Lindsay subsequently co-founded Discover the Journey and has filmed and photographed many of the children affected by the LRA violence, and has even been instrumental in freeing some of them from captivity. Her images have been seen by many and used by broadcast media to illustrate the crisis in Congo, surrounding countries and around the world while also serving as a CNN and BBC contributor.

Her dedication to reintegrate and reconcile these children has led to her innovative “Mobile Cinema” project, funded by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, seeking to restore the traumatized young people to peaceful lives in their villages and homes, and overcome negative stigma, by using their own stories for local expression and healing. There has been significant success and Lindsay’s work is being expanded into CAR and other regions where children are being victimized and traumatized by violence and war. She introduced the story with word and pictures in her compelling piece,

http://mobilecinema.dtj.org/blog/2013/2/8/space
, which details the lives and challenges of the families she’s worked with in her extensive research and travel to the war-torn areas.

The impressive and exciting results are extensively outlined in The Harvard Humanitarian Initiative publication: click here.

She has loved, cared and written about other children in crisis in other parts of the world as well, including the American southwest, where children suffer poverty and malnutrition and the orphans in Haiti after the devastating earthquake of 2010. She helped produce an award winning documentary with Soledad O’Brien and CNN, “Rescued”.

In 2005, Lindsay co-produced a documentary with the New York Times about the corporate cover-up of responsibility for fatal accidents at railway crossings, which won the Pulitzer Prize for journalistic excellence.

Her work can be seen on her website: artisandelapaix.com.

Lindsay’s words and images captivate and inspire, and her heart to make a difference has changed the world in powerful and positive ways, she’s truly an Artisan de la Paix – a remarkable artist for peace!!!!!

via Bevans Branham Non-Profits & Humanitarian http://bevansbranhamnonprofit.com/lindsay-branham-the-heart-of-a-humanitarian/

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