Tech night out: market meltdown edition
I was on a mission Thursday night when I raced into the conference center at the Presbyterian Health Foundation Research Park. My editor wanted a “man-on-the-street” take on the ongoing market meltdown from the crowd of technology-based entrepreneurs.
What I found is that most of the start-ups working to commercialize a technology in Oklahoma haven’t been hit with a direct impact from the market crash.
That’s because they aren’t yet in a position to seek financing directly from lending institutions, which likely have made credit much more difficult to obtain.
“I think that’s evaporated,” said Tom Francis, vice president of investment funds at i2E, the not-for-profit corporation that mentors many of the state’s tech-based start-ups. “I think the start-up companies that were just sort of marginably bankable before, now are not. It just got tighter.”
But there’s an indirect impact, said David Thomison, i2E’s vice president for Enterprise Services.
”Many of our entrepreneurial companies rely on individual wealthy angels for start-up capital,” Thomison said. “The indirect end result of it, being the drop in the stock market, will potentially over the next 12 months have an impact on our clients’ ability to raise private capital.”
Despite the crushing financial news of the past week, the mood at the networking event was upbeat. There were knots of people gathered in small groups engaged in animated conversation throughout the conference center.
When I completed the man-on-the-street interviews, I got a few minutes to relax and meet some OCU students who are planning a major assault on the 2009 Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup Collegiate Business Plan competition.
I’ll write in an upcoming edition of The Oklahoman about their ambitions and the wonderful fallout the past year’s Governor’s Cup brought them.
In the photo above, Scott Rollins, l
eft, and Richard Alvarez, right, both of Selexys Pharmaceuticals, share a conversation with Max Doleh of Productive Technologies.
Business Writer
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