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SC Startups Make Some Noise at the Southeastern Venture Conference

Submitted by: George Magrath on Mar 13, 2009 at 5:48 pm Tagged with: BeliefNetworks, InnoVenture, Selah Technologies, Southeastern Venture Conference Source: George Magrath

The 2009 Southeastern Venture Conference in Atlanta this week was a huge success, and set the stage for an exciting Innoventure! More than 750 VC's, entrepreneurs, and others gathered to showcase the best innovation and technology in the Southeast, and nobody did a better job than the two South Carolina companies I saw, BeliefNetworks and Selah Technologies.

The week started off with a bang for BeliefNetworks as Paul Slaat of Internet Capital Group spoke very clearly and enthusiastically as the keynote for the Atlanta Venture Forum about online publishers using semantic intelligence to make content more relavent. He gave the simple, concise example of CNN's homepage the day of the USAirways miraculous landing on the Hudson. He noticed that the only content present on the page were offerings of cheap USAirways tickets. Obviously, this was an inappropriate use of space and he noted that had a semantic recommendation provider, BeliefNetworks happens to be the only semantic recommendation provider in the country, been employed by CNN, there would have been content oriented towards disaster management and other relevant concepts. He believes that a switch to semantic recommendations is absolutely essential to publishers competing with link aggregators such as Google News, The Drudge Report, The Huffington Post, ect.

But that was only the start of a great conference for BeliefNetworks. They were subsequently chosen by the Atlanta firm Morris, Manning, and Martin, LLP to a private presentation to select VC's Thursday morning. The BN management hit a home run during this presentation and became the hit of the party. I think people are really starting to understand what BeliefNetworks has been able to accomplish and are working hard to begin to mobilize and keep this great company and technology here on the East Coast.

Selah Technologies had an equally exciting SEVC. They were chosen to present to the conference on Thursday afternoon where they made a really exciting announcement, the opening of a Series B round to get the company through the last regulation hurdles before commercialization. The presentation by Michael was wonderful and very well received at the conference. There was a buzz throughout the day regarding Selah.

Many great companies with cutting edge technology attended this year's SEVC and the excitement was defiantly palpable. We should all be proud of the South Carolina companies at this conference, they not only held their own, but excelled as standout companies present.

What a great lead-in to Innoventure!