Sayonara, SiCortex

I was sad to see the news this week that Maynard-based SiCortex is shutting down and selling of its assets after investors decided to turn off the tap. The ambitious maker of high-performance computers had raised $42 million, and CEO Chris Stone told me they'd shipped 60 of the machines in 2008 when we spoke late that year. (More coverage from Xconomy, GigaOm, and HPCwire.)

Some famous last words from my December 2008 chat with Stone:

"Do I worry about raising money in this environment? Sure," Stone says. "But we're generating revenue, and the customers want to buy more."

The shut-down is bad news for local VC firms Flagship Ventures, Prism VentureWorks, and Polaris Venture Partners. (Bob Metcalfe was the Polaris partner who served on SiCortex's board; another of his portfolio companies, Greenfuel, also shut down in May.)

Ex-employee Jeff Darcy has an analysis of what went wrong on his blog:

The only failure that mattered was not technical, nor in any area of customer-oriented execution: it was purely a matter of finance and timing. There is every reason to believe that our next system based on our next chip was going to be awesome, pushing our flagship system well into the Top 500 even before we talk about linking them together, and development was well along. Unfortunately, such development is not cheap and that put us in a high-burn-rate phase right when the economy turned sour and capital became very scarce. That’s like a “perfect storm” combination of circumstances. Maybe there are some things we could have done differently, but “coulda woulda shoulda” is a dangerous game. For example, some might say we should have cut costs sooner, even if it meant delaying the arrival of that next system, and tried to “weather the storm” until a better funding environment came around. Maybe. Or maybe, under other equally-likely conditions, that would have led to a far more ignominious failure as our competitors took the same extra time to adopt our approaches and use superior resources to leave us behind technologically. No thanks. I’m not in any mood to second-guess the people who made those decisions. I’d rather believe, and I think I’m justified in believing, that we played a good game and can walk off the field with our heads held high even though the score wasn’t in our favor.

Here's some video I shot at SiCortex's HQ in December 2008:

June is Innovation Month in New England: What Should We Do to Make An Impact?

Why declare that June 2009 is Innovation Month in New England?

My take: innovation -- new products, new companies, new ideas, new investment themes -- is what will enable our region to recover from the recession. Innovation has always been an inherent strength in these parts, but we can and should do better.

So here's my challenge to you...

What we've done so far is set up a Web site to list just a few of the innovation-oriented events taking place in New England in June. It'd be great if you could come to at least one of them to contribute to this concentrated, month-long conversation about innovation, and also help spread the word through your network. (Maybe you'll also let people know which events you plan to attend... I'll be at the IT Collaborative Dialogue on June 10th, Convergence on June 11-13, the MassNetComms Innovators Summit on June 17th, What's Next in Tech on the 25th, and possibly more.)

What else should we do to kick-start things in June ... to get people talking, connecting, collaborating, and thinking in new ways about how we launch and grow innovative ventures here in New England? To spotlight important research and development initiatives? To make students more aware of opportunities in the innovation economy here?

I'm eager to hear your ideas, big and small ... especially ones that are cheap/free, don't require much coordination, and can at least be started or announced in June. I may use a few of these in a column soon, so if you'd like, include your real name and affiliation in the comments.

(Oh, and if you blog or Tweet about Innovation Month, or post notes from any of the events that are part of it, please use the tag #neinno.)

All About Stimulus Funding

My most recent Globe column was about how cleantech companies are chasing stimulus funding that's just starting to flow from DC. From that piece:

"Emerging technology companies in the energy space are landing in Washington like locusts," says Mitch Tyson, chief executive of Advanced Electron Beams, a Wilmington start-up that is just now hiring Holland & Knight LLP to handle its lobbying.

Hemant Taneja, a venture capitalist at Cambridge-based General Catalyst Partners, says that all of the energy-related companies in his portfolio are hiring government relations specialists and lobbyists: "This is a $10,000-a-month expense that could yield significant capital for our businesses, which are really capital-intensive."

Mass High Tech did a similar story recently, which was part of a much bigger package on stimulus funding. Lots of great advice and resources there...

June Forecast: Cloudiness

Two free events coming up, related to cloud computing...

On June 4th, Branko Gerovac and David Carver have put together a panel on The State of Startups Using Cloud Computing. It takes place at the Vilna Shul on Beacon Hill.

The limited tix to the second will vanish in a flash: Intuit founder Scott Cook, local GM Bill Lucchini, and VCs like Jeff Bussgang, Jeffrey Beir, and Todd Hixon will be speakers at Startups and the Cloud, coming up June 11th at Bentley. A CEO panel will feature chief execs from Pixily, DimDim, and ClickFuel.

(There's also a cloud session on June 22nd as part of the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston.)

Creating an Entrepreneur's Clubhouse in Kendall Square

Kendall Square is one of the densest collections of smart people, start-up companies, larger tech and biotech firms, and research labs in the country. Pick any square mile of Silicon Valley and I doubt you'd find such a heterogeneous hive of activity.

But one thing Kendall Square lacks is a hang-out geared expressly to entrepreneurs, innovators, and investors. (I've been harping on this topic for eight years now.) Yes, if you work in the Cambridge Innovation Center, the kitchen areas there are nice gathering spots. Yes, if you go to MIT or know how to find it, the Muddy Charles Pub is a fine place to have a pint. Sure, during a busy lunch hour, you're likely to see plenty of people you know at Legal's or Emma's or Black Sheep or the Starbucks in the Marriott or the Au Bon Pain, or maybe standing in line at one of the square's many lunch trucks.

But if you want to hang with other people starting companies, swap ideas, meet some new folks, do a laptop demo, or work for a few hours, there's no place specifically built for that. Where's the clubhouse for entrepreneurs?

Tim Rowe, founder of the Cambridge Innovation Center and a partner at New Atlantic Ventures, is working to create one. The working name is "The Venture Café," and he has just set up a Facebook group to solicit your ideas for a name, location, and the features that would make it a success.

Tim's definition of the project: "This project seeks to create a large-format, fun 'hangout' place in Kendall Square, open early til very late, where the innovation and entrepreneurship community can come together." See this discussion page for more info, or to contribute your ideas.

"In terms of financing it," Rowe writes, "we're hoping to have this jointly owned by a broad cross section of entrepreneurs and others active in the innovation community. Hopefully, this can be 'owned by all' rather than becoming the province of a select few." Rowe has already been having some productive talks with a few initial investors.

Count me as a supporter.

(Note: The Venture Café is also the title of a great book about entrepreneurship by ex-Bostonian Teresa Esser, presently in exile in Milwaukee.)

New HQ for Greylock Partners: Sand Hill Road...Menlo Park... Calif.

Just got off the phone with Bill Helman of Greylock Partners, who shed some light on the story everyone is talking (and Tweeting) about this morning: Greylock is moving its home office from Waltham to Menlo Park.

Sticking around in Waltham will be two partners: Helman and Bill Kaiser. (They also get occasional visits from Greylock chairman Henry McCance.)

Helman said the decision was made by the partners over the past month. "We looked at the data, looked at our returns, and looked at competitive data, to the extent that you can get it," he said. "Then, of course, we get paid to make judgments, so there's a judgment that gets made on top of that. We asked, is this cyclical or secular -- and we came down on the side that this is more of a secular shift than a cyclical one."

"This doesn't mean that Boston is a zero," he continued. "Boston is a terrific location, and there will continue to be success here. But the big change was moving the back office [to California, and deciding to add new partners there.] I have an emotional attachment to Boston. I live in Cambridge. I love Harvard, and I love MIT. But we have a responsibility to our limited partners."

Greylock only has a handful of current portfolio companies in the Boston area right now. They include Zipcar, Reveal Imaging, Concert Pharmaceuticals, AVEO, and Ounce Labs. I called Roger Tung, chief executive of Concert, this morning, and he hadn't yet heard about the news, though he'd had lunch with Helman (who serves on his board) a few weeks ago.

"They told me they're getting new space on Sand Hill Road, but I just assumed they were moving offices there," Tung said.

Helman said the plan was not to discuss the change until July, when Greylock holds its LP meeting. But apparently rumors were circulating around the grapevine that Greylock was closing its Waltham office and laying everyone off, so Helman needed to set the record straight. (The new space in Menlo Park will be big enough to add a few more partners -- and Greylock is unusual right now in that very few VC firms are growing.)

He said that Greylock raised its most recent fund in 2005 ($500 million), but hasn't been out trying to raise a new one -- though they're talking about when might be the right time.

Helman portrayed this geographical shift as something that has been taking place over the last eight or ten years for the firm, as the Greylock partnership and portfolio has expanded in the Bay Area. "Fifteen years ago, we were 75 percent Boston and 25 percent Silicon Valley," he said, "but more recently we've become much more focused on Silicon Valley." Portfolio companies out there include Facebook, LinkedIn, Cuil, and Revision3.

"Everybody has been asking me, do you think Boston is terrible and there's no opportunity here," Helman said. "That's not what we think. The issue is one of relativity. We get paid to deliver relative value add. For us, this is about the relative best geography."

My take: this is not such a big change for Greylock, where they've been focused predominantly on West Coast opportunities for a while... but the fact that the firm will be adding partners in the Valley and not in Massachusetts is a net negative for the entrepreneurial scene here.

Your thoughts?

(Update: Here's the official Greylock release on the move... and some data and reaction from Bijan Sabet at Spark Capital.)

New England's Golf Entrepreneurs

I wrote earlier this month about the New England golf scene.

Did you know that Top-Flite and Titleist golf balls are made in Massachusetts, and that Cobra and Ahead also have a presence here?

The column focuses on smaller ventures, though, like GolfEtail (Springfield, MA), 3balls.com (West Bridgewater, MA), Beacon Ridge Golf (Windham, NH), Stiletto Green Tool (Worcester, MA), Green Friendly Golf (Providence, RI).

A snippet:

Just as golfers can't resist the lure of the links as the weather turns warm, some entrepreneurs are drawn toward the golf industry, with its typically spendy, passionate, and gadget-oriented customers.

But even as the region's golf entrepreneurs are focused on designing unique, must-have products or offering alluring online discounts, they may not be able to dodge the effects of the economic downturn: Retailers are reporting decreasing sales, courses are closing, and attendance at this year's big merchandise trade show was down.

Last month, Callaway Golf Co. chief executive George Fellows predicted that sales of golfing gear will sink 15 to 20 percent in 2009.

What's Next in Tech? Discuss the Growth Opportunities, on June 25th

I'm moderating an event on June 25th called "What's Next in Tech: Exploring the Growth Opportunities of 2009 and Beyond."

The idea is to provide a picture of the tech clusters that are going to drive the next waves of growth here in Massachusetts, from cloud computing to robotics to videogames to energy efficiency to social media. Speakers include venture capitalist Bijan Sabet from Spark Capital, iRobot co-founder Helen Greiner, Brian Halligan of HubSpot, and Tim Healy, who runs the publicly-traded EnerNOC. (Note: The early registration rate ends on May 15th -- tomorrow.)

One goal leading up to the event is to start some blog conversation about the high-potential areas in tech right now... a discussion we'll obviously continue at the event on June 25th. (Boston University's Institute for Technology Entrepreneurship & Commercialization is hosting it.)

Bloggers like Don Dodge, Pito Salas, Larry Cheng, Doug Levin, Tom Summit, Gregg Favalora, Furqan Nazeeri, Chris Herot, and the folks at Mobile Monday Boston have already published their lists of "what's next in tech." If you decide to create one, post a link to it in the comments here.

Here's the list of tech areas I'm following most closely (in no particular order...and excluding here all things outside of pure tech, such as life sciences, med devices, energy):

- Healthcare IT and electronic medical records
- Digital video (esp. getting Internet video onto the TV)
- New analytics companies (in the vein of Compete.com, Visible Measures, Localytics, etc.)
- Mobile apps
- Robotics
- Video games
- Intersection of IT and energy efficiency/management
- New forms of media/reporting/content creation
- Online payment and micropayment
- Better management/prioritization of e-mail
- Cloud computing and SaaS (wrong to group those two together?)
- Social media and marketing (wrote about this pretty recently)
- Ways of connecting bands (and other creative artists) with their fans (a la Sonicbids)
- Enhancing e-commerce (a la Paragon Lake, which does custom jewelry)
- New ways of interfacing with computers (touch, speech, thought, etc.)

I could go on, but that's a start...

(The hashtag for the "What's Next in Tech" event is #whatsnext09. Feel free, of course, to Tweet about it... and hope to see you there!)

Angels Alighting at New Cambridge Co-Working Space?

Bill Warner (founder of Avid Technology, Wildfire, and one of the godfathers who is bringing TechStars to Boston this summer) tells me he's working out of the new C3 co-working space at Cambridge Innovation Center. His mission: to attract three or four other local angel investors to the space, and create a little angel investing cluster there.

Know someone who might be interested? He's @billwarner on Twitter.

In other angel news, Colorado entrepreneur and investor David Cohen announces that he has put together a small $2.5 million fund to invest in very early-stage start-ups (with some money from Warner). Cohen writes on his blog: "While this new fund will choose the best available investments nationally, we believe that some of those will naturally include companies exiting TechStars."

Brainstorming: How Do We Better Communicate New England's Innovative Mojo?

We had a great 2.5 hour brainstorming session last night at the offices of Flybridge Capital Partners in the Back Bay, focused on this question: how do we better communicate New England's innovative, creative, entrepreneurial spirit to the rest of the world?

The folks who participated are listed all the way at the bottom of this post. I would've invited more, but we wanted a small-ish group in order to give everyone a chance to participate, and wanted to represent various fields (like energy, life sciences, digital media, etc.)

Here are some of my notes on what we covered. I'd love your comments and ideas.

You can also download the audio of the entire conversation (MP3), or just click play below (it runs about 1:45).



1. The challenge

We don't do a good enough job communicating to the rest of the world the innovative stuff -- and important problem-solving -- that takes place here in New England. We also tend to communicate in a fragmented way as divergent fiefdoms (IE, Providence and Portsmouth and Western Mass. all work on their own strategies) and as verticals (healthcare data and cleantech and defense all work on their own strategies), rather than thinking about communicating about the entire region, and all of our industries. In a competitive global economy, maybe we need to think as a region, not just cities and states.

2. The audience

I suggested that the primary audiences for this communication are:

- Students who come here to get an education, and often leave
- Entrepreneurs in other places who may come here to build businesses in a given field
- Large companies (IE, Google and Novartis) who may feel its important to set up a satellite facility here

Other folks said that there are other audiences, like

- People who already live here, but may not understand the innovation industries
- People who work in one innovation industry, but don't have a good sense of the others
- Alumni: people who once lived here, but have moved away (Dave McLaughlin of Boston World Partnerships used a nifty espionage term for these folks: he likes to say we have "assets" in other locations)

3. The approach

I suggested that we focus mostly on things that are inexpensive (or free) to do, and don't require too much coordination. I told the participants that I didn't want to create six working groups that would each meet once a quarter to figure out what to do. I said my bias was more toward things that we could accomplish in six months to a year, rather than longer-term initiatives... and toward things that would be open to anyone's participation, rather than limited to a chosen group. (We then talked about some of the worthy initiatives that already exist, from Boston World Partnerships to MITX's efforts to connect students with digital media employers to the city of Boston's "One in 3" program.)

4. What's here

We talked a bit about the various industries based here, and the ways we are innovative... from medical devices to defense to transportation to film and the arts to clean energy to social and policy innovation. Saul Kaplan from Rhode Island suggested that instead of listing industries, we should talk about problems that we are trying to solve -- for instance, providing better and more affordable healthcare, dealing with climate change, etc.

5. The common attributes / what we're good at

We spent a nice chunk of time talking about the things that are common across all of the innovation we do:

This area is an "academic Hollywood" that attracts bright students and profs. (Some preferred the term "intellectual Hollywood.")

We punch above our weight... we're a small region that has a big impact on the world.

We're scrappy.

We connect across silos to solve problems.

We constantly reinvent and rebound -- the region always comes back after economic dips.

Contrary to the popular Brahmin perception, Dave McLaughlin of Boston World Partnerships noted that Boston is one of the most youthful cities in the country. (Second only to Austin, I think...)

Education is the root of everything that we do. I suggested that we're good at taking academic research, adding money and entrepreneurial expertise, and building companies that matter to the world.

Saul Kaplan suggested that we're focused not just on inputs to innovation (new research, patents, start-ups, and VC), but the outputs, too: having an impact on big problems in the world.

We're good at exploring the intersections and convergences of different-but-related fields.

Jamie Tedford of Brand Networks made the case that we (innovators) are the best salespeople for the region. (Me: Maybe we just need to be more coordinated or more clear about what we're selling.)

6. What we might do

Get more students to go to networking events/conferences. I mentioned the StayinMA program that Flybridge started, which provides scholarships to students to cover the registration fees.

Collect all of the studies about the economic impact of N.E. innovation in one place

A site/blog that serves as the "Daily Candy" of N.E. innovation

I suggested a one-page "talking points" sheet that people could download so they'd have a picture of what happens here, and be able to speak about it broadly ... for instance, if you sit next to someone from Iowa on a plane. Nick d'Arbloff of the New England Clean Energy Council talked about illustrating the impact of innovation here with charts, images, and graphs. (Maybe an iPhone app?)

More mentorship from successful execs/entrepreneurs

A wiki to collect info about various groups/associations/funding sources/companies connected to innovation here. A directory of innovation, someone termed it, or a "wikipedia of New England innovation."

We should have salons to connect students/young people with established entrepreneurs/innovators. (Bob Metcalfe does these occasionally at his Back Bay home.)

We might distribute Flipcams to people to go out and build a library of entrepreneur/innovator interviews. (Perhaps students at b-schools?) Another video-related project, which I think Don McLagan said he and MITX are working on, involves encouraging students to produce short videos about their first year at their first job at a company here in Massachusetts, for consumption by other students.

Doug Levin talked about creating an "oasis online geared to students."

I suggested that we need to create more ways for students to visit companies... one thought is picking a Friday every month when several companies around the region might host a lunch for students, where they could hear about what the company is working on, meet the CEO or key execs, and get a tour. Kind of a "tech trek" that would run the entire school year, not just for a week during spring break. (Which is when many b-school students head out west to visit innovative companies.)

Think about things that can leverage the unemployed, and their time. Steve Wardell mentioned that he relied on unemployed folks to help run a big event he put on in February, about healthcare IT...and I mentioned a local entrepreneur who has been thinking about ways to encourage unemployed folks to team up to try to develop start-up ideas. (Not sure if he's ready to talk about it yet...)

Homecoming Weekend: Encourage towns around the region to invite their natives back on one specific weekend, like July 4th or some time around Xmas... and spotlight companies hiring and things happening in those towns. (Newburyport apparently has a homecoming weekend like this.)

On the train ride back to Cambridge, Steve Wardell suggested that we need to get more innovators blogging, at little companies and big ones. "We need to create 1000 Scobles," he said, referring to the famous ex-Microsoft blogger. "We should encourage more people here to use social media, to get away from the perception that Yankees are insular and clubby and only talk amongst ourselves."

7. Next steps

I'm working on a small project to declare that June is "Innovation Month in New England," with a few collaborators. There are an incredible number of innovation-related events happening next month across the region, and we're going to spotlight a few and try to encourage people to attend at least one, if they agree with us that innovation and entrepreneurship are what will help the economy rebound. We'll start using the tag #neinno for reporting on those events, and see if that catches on for Tweets and blog posts and photos about innovation in the region.

I think/hope that other folks who participated last night will develop some of the ideas they feel most strongly about -- and if they do, I'll point you to those projects from this blog.

(Update: Here's a post about the discussion from Saul Kaplan, the delegate from Rhode Island.)

=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Participants:

Banfield
Richard
Fresh Tilled Soil

Bennett
Jeff
NameMedia

Bourque
Janice
(formerly Comerica Bank, Mass Biotech Council)

Bussgang
Jeff
Flybridge Capital Partners

Cestari
Mark
Conn. Tech Council

Cole
Devin
Boston Redevelopment Authority

Collins
Kristen
KMC Partners

d'Arbeloff
Nick
NE Clean Energy Council

Hopcroft
Tom
Mass. Technology Leadership Council

Kaplan
Saul
Business Innovation Factory

Kelly
Kel
Kel & Partners

Kirsner
Scott
Boston Globe / Innovation Economy

Krim
Bob
Boston History & Innovation Collaborative

Lacey
John
Genzyme

Levin
Doug
Entrepreneur & NE Clean Energy Council Fellow

Levinson
Karyl
Forrester Research

McLaughlin
Dave
Boston World Partnerships

McLagan
Don
Entrepreneur (formerly Compete.com)

Mills
Kiki
Mass. Innovation & Technology Exchange

Pierson
Matt
NH Technology Council

Scott Lyon
Nancy
Zipcar

Steig
Joseph
Long River Ventures / Venture Well

Tedford
Jamie
Brand Networks

Wardell
Steven
HIL Forum

Witheiler
Matt
Flybridge Capital Partners

Prism: One More Local VC Firm Hits Fundraising Brick Wall

Dan Primack at PEHub reported yesterday that Prism VentureWorks of Needham has put fundraising for its sixth fund on hold. Primack wrote:

“We plan to spend the next year focusing on our portfolio companies, and evolving the firm,” says Woody Benson, a general partner with Prism since 2004. “I don’t know exactly what that evolution will mean for us, but the venture world is obviously beginning to change, in terms of things like new models.”

Benson added that the aforementioned “evolution” is not expected to include layoffs of investment staff.

Benson joined what used to be Prism Venture Partners in 2004. The company was still led by co-founder Bob Fleming in 2005, when it raised its fifth fund ($250 million.) Fleming is still listed on the Prism Web site, but he effectively left in 2006 along with Duane Mason, another founder of the firm. Benson then took the reins, and started focusing more on what he dubbed "digital living" investments.

There have been a few successes in Fund V, PEInsider observed last year, including selling "Softricity to Microsoft in 2006 for an undisclosed amount and video-hosting company Maven Networks to Yahoo this year for $160 million - both of which yielded more than three times its investments."

If Prism isn't eventually able to raise a sixth fund, the Boston VC scene gets a little bit smaller.

All eyes right now are on Highland Capital and Polaris Ventures' fund-raising efforts...Primack at PEHub reported last month that Highland is trying to raise a smaller $400 million fund; the firm's last fund, raised in 2006, was $800 million.

New Blog from Larry Cheng, Fidelity Ventures VC

Larry Cheng of Fidelity Ventures (and formerly Battery Ventures) has a new blog: Thinking About Thinking (it's named after his favorite course at Harvard.) Larry has also been tweeting for a while now.

Do let me know if there are any other entrepreneur or VC or tech exec blogs related to New England that should be added to the list...

Looking for a Designer

Know a graphic designer who'd like to work on a small, high-profile, community-oriented pro bono project, geared to turbo-charging innovation in New England? Send 'em my way.

This will involve a smidge of logo and Web design. (This is a project that needs to happen in the next two weeks, so if it's after May 15th, don't send 'em my way.) Comment here or drop me an e-mail (sk - at - scottkirsner dot com).

Fidelity Ventures: Ignore the Rumors, Everything's Fine

Regular readers of the blog know that I don't traffic in rumors... but I wanted to try to fact-check the info about Fidelity Ventures that I'd been hearing through the grapevine over the past week.

Four separate venture capitalists at local firms have told me that Fidelity is stepping back from its commitment to Fidelity Ventures, and looking for other limited partners who might want to put money into the next Fidelity Ventures fund. (Historically, Fidelity has been the lone LP backing Fidelity Ventures.)

"They debated shutting it down, but their intention is to raise another fund," the founder of one local VC firm told me. "My belief is that they're trying to go through a transition here from a Fidelity-controlled fund to one where it gets smaller, and Fidelity's commitments will be smaller." In 2007, Fidelity Ventures expanded the size of Fund IV from $250 million to $400 million; that's the fund they're currently investing out of.

Another managing partner at a different VC firm said he'd seen a number of resumes from Fidelity Ventures partners and associates. "The returns haven't really been there, and for Fidelity, VC and private equity may have just gotten too big and too expensive," he said.

"They've started a process to explore how they might raise traditional capital," said another managing partner. "These one-LP models don't tend to perform very well." (None of these VCs wanted to be named, since many of them have worked or may work with Fidelity Ventures at some point.)

The rumor mill also has it that Rob Ketterson, the managing partner at Fidelity Ventures, has been stepping back from an active investing role (he currently serves on just one board), and partner Larry Cheng has been taking more of a leadership role. (An aside: Ketterson is married to Elizabeth Johnson, one of Fidelity chairman Ned Johnson's daughters.)

Fidelity Ventures' two most recent investments, in Stylesight and Vibes Media, were made last September. On TheFunded.com, a "No New Investments Warning" has been posted, alerting entrepreneurs that TheFunded has received "information that [Fidelity Ventures] may not be making investments into new portfolio companies." The firm's most recent exit seems to be the sale, last April, of broadband cable solutions provider Jacobs Rimell to Amdocs for $45 million.

When I called up Fidelity Ventures partner Larry Cheng on Tuesday, he told me that "things are fine," before suggesting that I talk to managing partner Rob Ketterson for more detail. But Fidelity didn't make Ketterson available, instead dispatching spokesperson Adam Banker.

In response to my questions, Banker said that like many other venture firms, Fidelity Ventures is "taking a cautious stance" with regard to new investments, adding, "We have capital to invest." There have been "no significant changes" in staffing, he said, and "all the partners are still here." Finally, Banker said, Fidelity has "never approached limited partners outside Fidelity" to put money into Fidelity Ventures. (Update: Banker says Fidelity made another A round investment in late Q4, without disclosing the company.)

"When things are good and your liquidity events are such that you're making money and you don't require a lot of money from corporate, everyone loves [venture capital]," says Howard Anderson, ex-VC turned MIT lecturer, talking about corporate VC initiatives. "But when you've got cash calls all over the place, and you haven't had a liquidity event since the last ice age, the treasurer asks what's going on." Anderson continued, "If Fidelity [the parent company] was doing really well, this wouldn't make too much difference. But if Fidelity is facing redemptions, looking at cost-cutting, and needing more money for advertising, this becomes a visible thing."

(I'd been developing this as a Globe column, but since Fidelity says there's nothing to the rumors, this seems unworthy of further treatment...)

Entra: The Stealthy New Start-Up from Yet-Ming Chiang and Michael Cima

I kept hearing that A123 Systems founder Yet-Ming Chiang was up to something new, so I've spent a few days putting together the pieces.

Turns out he has launched a new company, Entra Pharmaceuticals, to commercialize some drug delivery technology that he and fellow MIT prof Michael Cima cooked up a couple years ago. But they're not just creating an inexpensive, disposable new device that Cima refers to as a "patch pump" -- they're also working on a new drug, too. "The strategy is to make a product with the drug on board," Cima says. "Instead of a $5000 pump, this is a transformational technology that's less expensive, smaller, and less complex."

Unlike a passive nicotine patch, Chiang says their device does involve electronics. "A good way to describe it is 'smart' and 'active,'" he said during our game of Twenty Questions this afternoon. Neither founder wants to be specific about the disease they're addressing, though Cima says it won't be diabetes.

Both Chiang and Cima are board members and consultants to Entra, visiting the company one day a week for a technology update. They've hired Frank Bobe as chief executive, who was formerly chief business officer at Alseres Pharmaceuticals. (Alseres is a 17-year old company that has yet to get a drug approved, and was [updated] just de-listed from Nasdaq.) Heading up business development is Shobana Albrecht, previously at BG Medicine and Baxter. Rick Gyory is VP of product design and development; he earlier worked at Transform Pharmaceuticals and ALZA Corp.

Interestingly, Entra is now located at the BU Photonics Center near Kenmore Square -- the very same building where A123, Chiang's last company, was hatched. (Battery-maker A123 raised $69 million earlier this year, as it remains in a holding pattern waiting to go public.)

Here's the key patent MIT has licensed to Entra, which seems like a hybrid of a transdermal skin patch and a wearable infusion pump.

"Many new drugs have short half-lives," Cima explains. "They're metabolized quickly. So to get the right exposure, you have to hook yourself up to an IV for continuous administration, or if you do a bolus dose, you have to go really high, and a lot of the time the side effects you get are associated with that high concentration. With a device you can wear, you can achieve a long half life" without having to do either of those things, and without having to redesign the molecular structure of the drug itself. "That's the value that we bring, at a high level," Cima says.

This is the first life sciences start-up for Chiang. He told me that the science behind Entra was initially funded by a DARPA grant, and then by MIT's Deshpande Center. "The idea behind Deshpande is to help new technologies get through the 'valley of death,'" Chiang said, when they're not raw research any more, but they're also not yet a commercializable product. "That really worked in this case."

Up to now, the only real known info on Entra was a PEHub report last December noting that Flybridge Capital Partners and North Bridge Venture Partners had put $4.2 million into the company in an A round -- and will increase that amount to $12.5 million if the company hits certain milestones this year. The board member representing Flybridge is Michael Greeley; Jeffrey McCarthy represents North Bridge. This is the fourth Cima-related start-up that Greeley has been involved with.

(Another recent collaboration between Cima and Greeley is Certus Biomedical, which will soon change its name because of some trademark conflicts. Very little is known about that company, either, although its backers are Flybridge, Ed Kania at Flagship Ventures, and Kevin Bitterman at Polaris Venture Partners.)

Audio: Fireside Chat with Kiva.org's Co-Founder

I had fun last night conducting a "fireside chat" at the Portsmouth Public Library with Jessica Jackley-Flannery, co-founder of the enormously successful micro-lending site Kiva. (They frequently have to deal with the problem of too many willing lenders and not enough borrowers, she said.)

We talked about Jessica's career, micro-finance in general, the founding of Kiva, how she has marketed the site (Oprah, Daily Kos, and Boing Boing have all played key roles), and what's next for her. Here's the MP3 of our conversation (it's about an hour long... questions from the audience will be a bit hard to hear, since it was recorded on my iPhone.) Or you can just click the player below.

Clean Energy Council (Quietly) Announces New Class of Fellows

The New England Clean Energy Council has just named its new group of 25 fellows -- experienced execs and investors interested in repositioning themselves for careers in cleantech. (There has been no official press release, though.) The program starts Tuesday at MIT, and runs through July.

This new bunch includes Ahmet Ozalp, formerly an IT investor at Atlas Venture... Paul Sereiko, founder of SensiCast, a sensor networking start-up... Doug Levin, founding CEO of Black Duck Software... and Tan Rao, whose wireless home theater start-up, Radiospire Networks, was funded by Highland Capital but folded last month.

Reflections on Ten Years of the Nantucket Conference

The energy level was surprisingly high at last week's Nantucket Conference, given the general economic malaise. The best theory I heard: entrepreneurs are innate optimists, and when you get them away from the office and introduce them to other entrepreneurs, you get a multiplier effect. And the event was sold out, with a lengthy waiting list. Not sure I can explain that...

The discussions ranged from the importance of keeping promises to build credibility during the sales process (Bob Metcalfe) to the need to be "data-driven, tenacious, and gracious" (Boston-Power CEO Christina Lampe-Onnerud). Chris Zannetos of Courion defended the need to continue rewarding top performers, even in a downturn, and Aron Ain of Kronos said he'd chosen to cut about 300 jobs (out of 3300) rather than cut salaries across the board. Doing the latter would likely have caused the company's best contributors to start mulling other job offers. Paul Ricci of Nuance talked about some of the challenges of doing successful acquisitions, and said his company was adding engineering jobs in Montreal, rather than Massachusetts, because of favorable tax incentives in Canada. Nick d' Arbeloff of the New England Clean Energy Council listed climate change, energy security, and diminishing fossil fuel reserves as some of the defining challenges of our time, and said, "These problems have got to be wrestled to the ground."

Jana Eggers, CEO of Spreadshirt, said one of the company's mantras is, "Hope is not a strategy." And Robert Keane, CEO of Vistaprint, said his company is determined to transform printing and other online services for small businesses (signage, e-mail marketing, etc.) by looking to companies like Dell, Staples, FedEx, and Intuit for inspiration.

My favorite metaphor of the 10th edition of Nantucket came from Josh Kopelman of First Round Capital. He talked about the option of getting on the express train from Philly (near where he is based) to NYC, versus the local, which makes lots of stops on the way. Entrepreneurs and VCs who pour many millions of dollars into a start-up have essentially bought a ticket on the express train to an IPO. "You can't get off," Kopelman said. "And most entrepreneurs don't realize they've bought the express ticket." Kopelman said his preference is to invest smaller amounts in companies and keep valuations reasonable, which gives him more options for a profitable exit. "When there's smoke on the train, and we're at the [local stop where someone is offering us] $25 million [in an acquisition], I want to get off," he said, to lots of laughter.

And I think my favorite moment was when we successfully linked up with Skype COO Scott Durschlag via Skype. Durschlag couldn't make it to the island because of Skype's planned IPO, so he was in London, and we used the WiFi network at the conference venue to conduct a video chat. The quality, using Skype's new Macintosh beta client, was surprisingly good, and Durschlag talked about how Skype tries to pursue paying customers even as it serves freeloaders (people like me, who've never given Skype a dime of revenue.) Toward the end of the chat, Durschlag said the company had benefitted from Metcalfe's Law in its run-up to 400+ million users. I quickly turned my laptop around to the audience so that Durschlag could see Bob Metcalfe sitting in the front row and smiling proudly. (I don't think Durschlag necessarily knew that Metcalfe was in the audience.)

For the first time, there was really a lot of Twitter activity during the event. We showed Twitter posts on the screens at the front of the room once or twice during the sessions (which some people found annoying.) You can see it all here.

We started planning the very first Nantucket Conference in 1999. The original impetus was that lots of the entrepreneurs and investors (and journalists) who powered the innovation economy here in New England would bump into each other at events on the West Coast (like PC Forum, Agenda, TED, etc.) Why didn't our region have an event of its own explicitly targeted to the people building and running technology companies? Over the years, we've tried to constantly ask what we can do with the conference to make sure it remains valuable to execs at big companies, CEOs of smaller companies, and investors. We try to mix war stories, inspiring case studies, looks at new research or emerging technology areas, explorations of market dynamics, and insights from industry leaders. We clamp down on self-promotion, puffery, and PowerPoint slides.

The event has unfortunately developed a reputation for being exclusive mostly because our venue is small, so not everyone who wants to come can fit. We try to focus primarily on CEOs and founders, partners at VC firms, and executives at larger tech firms. The upside to that is that the event is not overrun by VPs of bizdev (like many conferences), and the only service providers in attendance (attorneys, commercial realtors, bankers, etc.) are those who underwrite the event. This year, there was a pretty good number of first-timers in attendance, and so we organized some dinners on the first night of the conference to help plug them into the Nantucket community.

The next two events I'm helping out with are the Convergence Forum, a life-sciences "spin-out" from Nantucket, and "What's Next in Tech," which takes place June 25th at BU.