Show #82 Listen (42:54) Download

Funded in December 2005, Vigilistics has just raised a buffer round to brace for the short term. They're making great headway in the market. They sell large process control software systems to the dairy industry. Today dairy, tomorrow the entire food processing world. Safety and savings, that sums up what their product is all about.

Show #81 Listen (40:30) Download

It's a new concept, formulated by Tech Coast Angels member Sid Mohasseb: Venture Farm. It's a fund for seed stage deals in southern California. It's daring, it's different, but Sid has a history of tackling new opportunities.

Show #79 Listen (48:13) Download

It's information technology and early stage deals at Palomar Ventures and so many winners in the Palomar portfolio that we only have time to discuss a few, but Randy mentions future winners like DATAllegro and Cellynx.

He's been involved with many VC firms on his way to Palomar and he's involved everywhere in the entrepreneurial ecosystem: OCTANe, Okapi and OCVG to name a few.

After the interview I post my first listener-based pitch: check out Joe Moreno's Ambaza.

Mentions: Qiagen, Henry Samueli, Stuart Frost, DATAllegro, NetworkPhysics, PairGain, Cellynx

Show #78 Listen (50:20) Download

He's a Managing Director at GKM Ventures in Los Angeles, a later-stage enterprise software and IT services fund, and he's the Chairman of Tech Coast Angels, the largest angel network in the U.S. This combination of later stage and early stage deals gives John a unique perspective on the state of venture capital today.

Show #77 Listen (35:07) Download

Together with co-founder Marc Averitt, Sharon Stevenson started Okapi Venture Capital earlier this year to focus on seed and early stage opportunities. The emphasis is on information technology and life science deals in southern California. Responsibilities seem neatly divided with Sharon in charge of the life science investments. Although they closed their fund in May, it might take till year end to fund their first deal.

How does one get to become a venture capitalist? Sharon's route has taken many turns along the way through academia at Case Western, as an executive of a specialty pharmaceutical company, SkinMedica, and eventually to Domain before co-founding Okapi.

Mentions: Don Milder, Versant, AMO, Conexant, WesternDigital, OCTANe, Domain, SkinMedica