Dan Weinreb’s blog

this article in Mass High Tech talks about early stage venture funding in New England. Here are the numbers that the article provided. I did some averages to keep all the figures “per month”.

• Jul, Aug, Sept 2008: 6 deals, $34M total
• Jan, Feb, Mar 2009: 3 deals, $17M total
• Jul 2009: 15 deals, $97M total

James Geschwiler, executive director of Common Angels, is quoted extensively in the article, which ends: “After all, when the economy is down, investors should be taking advantage of the lower costs. [James] said: ‘I didn’t have to go to business school to learn “buy low, sell high.”‘”

XSITE 2009 is a one-day conference that will showcase innovative business in New England.  It’s at the Boston University School of Management, 595 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston MA, on Wednesday, June 24, 2009.

High-tech, life-sciences, and energy innovation may well hold the key to the nation’s economic health and long-term competitiveness. And as a hotbed of American innovation, New England is poised to become a key driver of economic recovery in the U.S.

There are many presentations by CEO’s of innovative companies, including many startups.  There’s a panel session on “Investing in Innovation”.  And there’s time for networking: you can chat with and ask questions of the presenters, or just meet the other attendees.  Here’s the preliminary agenda.

I’ve been to meetings like this before, and always find them valuable and interesting.  The Nantucket Conference is like this, but it’s by invitation only. XSITE is open to anyone.

XSITE is run by Xconomy.com. I attended their one-day conferences on cloud computing and on mobile applications, and both were excellent.  So I have high hopes for XSITE as well.  (Full disclosure: I am an investor in Xconomy.)

If you plan to register, the sooner the better, since the price goes up on June 1 and again on June 15.

Daily Grommet is a web site that tells you about one cool product every day. There’s a video showing all about it, as well as a written description, and you can click through if you want to buy it. Some of the products tend to be oriented towards women, but not all of them. The “product” also also sometimes a worthy charitable organization. Jules calls each product a grommet.

The company was founded by my friend, Jules Pieri. She and her team carefully test each product. In fact, Jules once recruited me to help test out a new kind of American caviar. (She provided champagne as well; it’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it.) The only other member of the team I’ve met so far is Nataly Kogan, the Chief Community Officer and a great entrepreneur as well. I’m looking forward to meeting the rest of the team; their office is very close to where I live.

I have bought four or five products through Daily Grommet, some as presents for my wife (shh, don’t tell her yet!) and friends, and some for myself. The coolest one I’ve bought so far is the “foodloop” Trussing Tool, which is like a reusable cable tie (sorry, I’m an engineer) that you can put around food, instead of using twine. I gave these to my wife, and my friends Ed and Scott, all of whom are experienced cooks, and they all liked them a lot. You can buy past grommets (click on “Past Grommets”).

If you know of any product that would make a good grommet, please send mail to them.

(Note: I have no financial interest in this company, nor any business ties at all. I just like it, and Jules is my friend.)