Back to Consulting. Back to Banking. The point of the dark humour wasn't lost on Canadian entrepreneurs attending a two-day startup conference in San Jose, Calif., last week. All of this means the opportunity to find further funding is going to be harder for the next year, at least, many New Economy players now say.
Nobody is glad the bubble burst.
Calif. Like medics on the battlefield, VCs are busy deciding which of their funded companies they must leave to die and which to resuscitate with more money. Despite portfolio problems for U.S. VCs, the United States is still the promised land for many Canadian entrepreneurs seeking funding. A National Public Relations survey of nearly one-third of the Next Level conference participants found 51 per cent of those polled prefer U.S. VC funding. Canadian venture capitalist Brent Holliday, with Greenstone Venture Partners of Vancouver, says he recommends Canuck startups go after money in both countries. He says Canadian VCs won't be suffering as much as their American cousins this year and in 2001 because they didn't previously gorge on B2B or B2C investments as lenders did south of the border.