innovate arkansas

The quality of the startup companies participating in the 2010 Arkansas Venture Forum surpassed keynote speaker Howard Morgan's expectations.

The forum was held Wednesday at the Doubletree Hotel in downtown Little Rock, and showcased eight promising Arkansas firms, each of which was given 12 minutes to pitch before national investors. Morgan is a serial entrepreneur, founding partner of First Round Capital, founding investor and director of Idealab, and former professor at Cornell and Penn's Wharton School and Moore School. 

His keynote address to the roughly 150 entrepreneurs, investors and business leaders in attendance focused on the "six P's" behind funding the "big idea" — people, products, plans, profits, passion and perseverance.

"We're looking for the six P's as we build companies," he said, telling entrepreneurs in the audience that, "VCs are not risk takers. We try to eliminate as much risk as possible."

More than 50 Arkansas startup companies applied to pitch in person at the forum. Eight were selected to do so: BlueInGreen, Vastech-Young at Heart, Acumen Holdings, Silicon Solar Solutions, Black Oak Partners, BiologicsMD, Vertical Studios and NanoMech.

Videos featuring four more firms that made the final 12 were promoted on the Arkansas Venture Forum Web site. Those firms were Pathagility, Rx Results, Balm Innovations and MerchantView.

Morgan, known for his insight and candor, came away impressed with each of the presenting Arkansas firms.

"These are higher quality than I expected," he said. "These are quite good companies I've seen presented."

Morgan, visiting the state for the first time in 35 years, acknowledged geography is an obstacle to rural states like Arkansas, not in terms of ideas or creating companies, but in attracting and keeping the kind of talent it takes to make those ideas and companies work.

"It's harder to bring people in from the outside," he said. "The state has to continue to find good ways to recruit people from other parts of the country."

Arkansas, he said, seems to making much progress in that arena.

"This is a great city with a great lifestyle," he said. "It seems to have the right cultural climate that's open to innovation."

Scott Kingsborough, an independent investor based in Little Rock, said he was impressed too.

"I just attended the Tennessee equivalent to this event in Nashville, which was five or six times bigger," he said. "This was much better. This was really impressive. The early-stage activity hasn't been here in Arkansas but has really emerged the last three years. This is really exciting for Arkansas."

The annual forum is presented by Arkansas Capital Corporation.

The eight companies that presented at the event are clients of Innovate Arkansas, a program that works with new, technology- based entrepreneurs to turn inventions and high-tech concepts into viable businesses. The goal is to create high-paying Arkansas jobs in the knowledge, technology, and information-based industries and, ultimately, raise Arkansas' per capita personal income. 

Arkansas Business and Innovate Arkansas partnered to create InnovateArkansas.org, a website for innovators and the Innovate Arkansas program.

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