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This was evident at the Twiistup pre-event company pitch last week at UCLA.  Francisco Before the event I wanted to find out what I could about the students.  I I spotted my fellow VC Leo Spiegel (from Mission Ventures) who had spoken previously to the same group and asked about his experiences. My Most people suck at presenting to big groups.  It’s It’s a shame because the ability to nail these presentations at key conferences can be once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to influence journalists, business partners, potential employees, customers and VCs.

Join us for an informative (and informal) discussion with Dave Ryan of Mission Ventures. This event is for entrepreneurs only. Entrepreneurs will have an opportunity to ask many questions and get answers from one of Southern California's most experienced venture investors. Thursday, May 28, 2009 -- Meet The VC. OCTANe.

What's going on in venture capital in San Diego? And how will the changing venture economy affect angel investors? Mission Ventures ' Dave Ryan offers advice for angel investors. Events Come Show #221 (50:22) Listen Come to the SW Regional Angel Summit in Tucson March 22-23. Attend

RotoHog said that the 2009 AVP Fantasy Challenge will launch in mid-March, with prizes for both short-term contest and full seasons; AVP will cross promote the fantasy game at events, online, and in its broadcasts. RotoHog is venture backed by Allen & Co, DFJ DragonFund, Mission Ventures and Sports Capital Partners Worldwide. Los Angeles-based RotoHog , which operates online sports fantasy games, said today that the firm is in a partnership with the AVP Pro Beach Volleyball Tour on a new fantasy game. According to RotoHog, it will operate a fantasy game for

Icarus Studios is a provider of white-label, massively multiplayer online games and virtual worlds; The Venue Network is a developer of yet-to-be-launched software for conducting virtual events. Big Stage is backed by Mission Ventures, Selby Venture, and the Tech Coast Angels. Pasadena-based Big Stage Entertainment, which is developing 3D avatar technology, said today that it has opened up its proprietary 3-D facial modeling system to third parties. According to the firm, it will make its technology available via a program called PortableYou, to enable third parties to integrate

A quick analysis by socalTECH of our tracking of venture capital deals in Southern California finds that there was around $879M in venture funding activity here in Q3. The biggest are for venture activity in the quarter was Biopharmaceuticals, which was $299.13M of the quarterly total. San terms of venture firms, the most active firms here for Q3 were Western Technology Investment and the The information--gleaned from funding announcements, regulatory filings, and other sources--are not far off from socalTECH's totals from last quarter, which totaled up around $932M in investment activity.

A recent analysis by socalTECH, of our detailed tracking of venture capital investment activity in Southern California, finds that there was around $932M in funding raised in the area in Q2, a rise from roughly $700M in Q1. Other active investors were Prospect Venture Partners, DAG Ventures, Sevin Rosen Funds, In-Q-Tel, American River Ventures, Saints Capital, and Mission Ventures, all with two investments each. PricewaterhouseCoopers/National Surprisingly, the numbers--based on information gleaned from funding announcements, regulatory filings, and other sources--are approximately the same as numbers in Q2 of 2008, which total around $955M, according to our own data.

A study of the venture capital deal flow in Southern California conducted by socalTECH shows that venture capital deals dropped for Q3, to around $720M in deals, in a market dominated by clean technology firms. The numbers, which were drawn from venture deals tracked and reported in socalTECH's proprietary venture capital database, found that there was $719.7M in venture capital deals in the third quarter, down dramatically from $1.2B invested in Q3 of 2007, and down slightly from venture numbers in Q2, when there was approximately $966M in venture deals. The

The conference, held at the Westin South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, featured pitches by eight different companies vying for the attention--and pocketbooks--of venture capitalists. The conference, which does not unveil the names of the companies pitching until the day of the event, rolled out a lineup of Southern California companies ranging from email and instant messaging aggregator Orgoo, to virtual avatar firm mEgo.com. Southern California's top startups showed up in force Friday at the Westin South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, for the Technology Council of Southern California's annual VentureNet conference. (socalTECH