DURHAM, NC—The NC Council for Entrepreneurial Development’s Venture 2007 event drew more than hundreds of attendees, including 67 presenting companies and numerous investors to its Durham event Monday through Wednesday.

Robert Albright, the CED’s director of marketing and communications, said the event was the organization’s largest in years.

Following presentations by companies at the conference, investors frequently approached start-up founders or CEOs to express further interest.

“In three days time, you could get months of work done from a fund-raising perspective,” said Cindy Clark, CEO of SIRGA Advanced Biosciences, a North Carolina State University spin-out.

Karen Zaderej, vice president of marketing and sales for AxoGen Inc. of Alachua, Florida, one of TechJournal South’s top 15 biotech companies to watch in 2007, said, “We had several investors express interest in getting packages. Networking is always important.”

The conference also offered a first-ever Start-up Speed Dating session on Tuesday afternoon, which gave pre-seed companies an opportunity to meet with investors in a fast-paced, rotating session. Joel Edgerton, CEO of Musaion, who had one angel investor set up a meeting following his presentation said, “You meet so many investors in a small amount of time it’s a rare opportunity.

One out-of-state CEO said the only drawback he saw was that three days was a lot of time to be out of his office for a start-up with a small staff.

On Wednesday morning, the conference presented keynote remarks by Marshall Phelps, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel of intellectual property at Microsoft Corp., and Kush Parikh, vice president of business development at Inrix.

The event was held at Durham’s Washington Duke Inn.

For more information see:
www.cednc.org/venture.

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