A Great Day With Our Companies

Late last month, we brought all our companies together in San Francisco. The focus was around our partnership with GE. For the second year in a row, several of our companies presented their technologies to representatives from GE’s corporate venture group and research scientists, including Sue Siegel, CEO of GE Ventures (pictured right) and James Rothman, GE Consultant and recent Nobel Laureate.

Our event planner found an amazing spot for us to spend the day — the Hotel Zetta — complete with pool table (pictured left) and great spots for our entrepreneurs to hang out and share their current challenges with each other. We have been pleasantly surprised by the community that has developed among our companies and at our last event, they specifically requested more time to spend with one another.

At noon, Sue Siegel gave a talk about corporate venture capital to a rapt audience.

She gave us some interesting statistics that motivate corporate interest in startups including: 93% of executives are looking to innovate to drive growth; 81% of executives don’t believe their organizations know how to lead innovation. More importantly, she shared some insights into how best to work with corporate venture generally and GE Innovation specifically.

Scott Iyama from Orrick and Jeff Schox from the Schox Patent Group also gave great presentations, and very generously spent some one-on-one time with individual companies afterwards. And then our Executive Director, Lindy Fishburne (pictured left), led a session focused on new strategies to help our companies succeed.

We wanted to post photos of the happy hour that followed, but they still haven’t come back from the photographer (maybe he’s out of developer?). Suffice it to say the bar closed to a full house and many of us wandered over to the Cavalier to continue the evening over some fine cocktails.

(We’re very grateful to the folks at Friday Films for providing these stills from the video project they are working on with us.)