In a room overlooking Coors Field on Thursday, you needed no hands to count the number of venture capitalists and CEOs wearing a suit and tie.
This is Colorado, after all, where instead of meeting for drinks, executives literally take a hike. But while the casual business attitude attracts millennials and outdoor enthusiasts, there’s another reason why out-of-state investors are looking closer at technology companies here.
“We are a later-stage VC, and in Denver and Boulder there tends to be less later-stage VCs that can write a $40 million to $50 million check. There’s more opportunity (for us) here,” said James Newell, vice president of Institutional Venture Partners in Menlo Park, Calif.
Newell jumped at the chance to attend the second , the invitation-only event for venture capitalists to meet with local tech CEOs whose firms have raised at least $2 million. This year, the summit’s out-of-state VC attendance grew nearly 75 percent to 40 firms. Combined with 19 local VCs, the firms collectively manage $23 billion.
“I just tweeted that every market that needs to find critical mass needs to do this,” Newell said.
More national venture firms are homing in on the Colorado tech scene. Attendees includes representatives from Intel Capital, IBM Venture Capital Group and Paul Allen’s Vulcan Capital. Summit organizers purposely kept CEOs to a minimum — approximately 54 — to maximize the sessions between CEOs and VCs, said David Gold, managing director at Denver’s Access Venture Partners and creator of the summit.
It’s a different attitude from five years ago, said Bart Lorang, CEO of Full Contact, a Denver address-software company that from The Foundry Group in Boulder and Baird Capital in Chicago.
“I was raising capital (in 2010), and they said they wouldn’t invest in me unless I moved to the Bay Area,” Lorang recalled.
A Thursday night afterparty at The Kitchen Next Door opened the networking to all founders and CEOs of local tech companies regardless if they’ve received an iota of capital. More than 450 registered for the $15 event.
That may be how Brett Jurgens got an invite to this year’s main event. Last year, he attended the afterparty having just co-founded Notion, which developed sensors and a mobile app to keep a home safe. Since then, Notion graduated from Techstars in Boulder and raised $2.5 million. Its most recent round included Draper Nexus Ventures in California. Jurgens hoped to meet with other out-of-state investors at the summit.
“There is a difference,” Jurgens said. “There’s so many more of them.”
There’s also the amount of money.
“One other thing we saw happening with California investors is they always think about raising a whole lot more money,” Jurgens said. “Here, you have to show your proof points and plans. In California, they want you to sell the dream. It’s just a different mind-set. Is it good or bad? I don’t know.”
Colorado companies are seeing larger deals. This month, Denver’s next-generation TV firm , while Boulder robot toymaker .
After a decline, investments in local companies are back up to 2008 levels. Last year, 86 companies raised $793 million, up from the prior year’s 83 firms and $464 million, according to The MoneyTree Report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association.
The top deals last year were companies, which typically raise larger amounts of money than they did in previous rounds. Top local deals included SolidFire raising $60 million, Cool Planet Energy Systems at $50.7 million and Sympoz’s Craftsy at $49.8 million.
Many attendees pointed to the area’s distinctive camaraderie.
“Colorado recognizes that when someone succeeds, everyone wins,” said Joel Gheen, vice president of Cypress Growth Capital who is based in Denver. “It’s very easy to get connected to good companies.”
Regional differences were very eye-opening, said Promise Phelon, who moved to Boulder from to become CEO at TapInfluence.
“What I’ve learned is the Bay Area has an intensity. The Boulder-Denver area has an intimacy,” she said. “Here, (investors) want to spend six weeks getting to know the companies. That’s unheard of in the Bay Area.”
Tamara Chuang: 303-954-1209, tchuang@denverpost.com or twitter.com/Gadgetress
Invested in Colorado firms
1999 — $1.8 billion
2000 — $4.1 billion
2001 — $1.2 billion
2002 — $588 million
2003 — $610 million
2004 — $363 million
2005 — $617.5 million
2006 — $704.7 million
2007 — $686.3 million
2008 — $876.6 million
2009 — $463.4 million
2010 — $446.4 million
2011 — $661.6 million
2012 — $610.6 million
2013 — $464.5 million
2014 — $794.6 million
Source: The MoneyTree Report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association, based on data from Thomson Reuters
