Being a regular attendee at what I call "venture séances," I'm often asked for my opinions of various venues and formats.

Far and away the best I have seen in recent months was Jason Calacanis' Launch in San Francisco.  He focused the presenters on showing actual products more so than slides, assembled a storied group of jurists to critique each deal, and facilitated the investing of real dollars essentially on stage.  ("RTD" now means "Real Time Dollars."). The only downside to the entrepreneurs was that he kept them in a quiet period prior to the event so that all deals would be fresh.  A few weeks of delay and uncertainty can be painful, especially for companies that didn't quite make the final cut.

Different events serve different purposes.  My critiques here are not necessarily distinguishing good from bad, just an effort to properly position each format.

To me the ideal format is one where the entrepreneur has enough time, at least 15 minutes, to give a fulsome presentation and then is asked questions by either jurists or a very knowledgeable audience.  I want to hear enough to really understand the concept, see how it fits into its market, and to get some feel for the team.  Even in Atlanta I've seen firm dollar commitments made in this format.  

Martin Tilson has run since the early 90's the Communications Group, which follows this pattern and draws about 25 people monthly, including angels, VC's and corporate types, together representing much of the money in the Deep South.  The attendees have the opportunity to get "liquored up" and to enjoy fine dining and a discussion of the deals after the presenters have departed. I enjoy the camaraderie, and Martin and his screening committee work hard to find deals that match the investing interests of the group.  Under Mike Eckert's leadership the ATA is stepping up its game similarly, but there by definition the capacity and deal sizes are much smaller.  The biggest knock on this structure is that it only takes one person who has had a bad experience in a particular area to poison the thoughts of the entire group.  Beware of that risk.

Sanjay Parekh's Startup Riot is at the opposite extreme.  Three minutes and four slides deliver an all-day smorgasbord of opportunities to a crowd of entrepreneurs, observers, and some investors.  Follow-up is facilitated by table-top displays.  The best this format can do is pique someone's interest and show a large number of companies competing for scarce investor dollars.  It has a bit of a bazaar feel, with a great community spirit.

Startup Lounge also brings together a large mixture of companies and a group of investors, all thrown together in an unstructured cocktail party setting, and, for reasons unknown, always on a rainy day.  A true bazaar, the trick for someone looking for money is to get noticed and make a very quick pitch over the din.  Also a great community event, it has to be viewed as a place to get discovered but not to get much farther on the spot.

SEVC is somewhere in the middle of all this.  Entrepreneurs deliver canned slide shows of about 10 minutes duration and are then "around" for further discussion.   With no judge and jury format, and with mainly later stage companies that are already well shopped, frankly it's a pretty dry event.  It is well attended by investors from around the region who are mainly there to check up on each other and see how some of their existing deals are showing. One VC actually told me that any company relying on this method to seek funding had probably struck out in its direct efforts.  The event is well organized with complementary content and plentiful sponsors, and it obviously is providing value.  Venture Atlanta in the Fall is the annual bookend to SEVC and has a similar style.

Microsoft's BizSpark Accelerator at SXSWi had yet another twist. Presenters had only 2 minutes on day one followed by 10 minutes of questions.  Those who made the cut went to a 5/10 format on day two.  Frankly, as you know if you read my posts from Austin, the first day didn't work well.  Two minutes was too little; the 3 judges were on the front row facing the stage, and the audience was an afterthought.  The second day was much better with the colorful Mark Suster on stage both to introduce and question before the ball was tossed to the front row judges.  The crop of candidate companies was really strong, and certainly the finalists were quite good.  This was not a pure pitch session, per se, but there were many investors in attendance.  

So what is the net of all this?  Presenting at any sort of séance must be only part of your fundraising strategy, and you shouldn't bet too much on it.  Séances tilt more toward the investors than the entrepreneurs.  Nothing beats a warm personal introduction to the right angel or the right partner at a VC firm.  There are so many deals and so many investors in SF and the Valley that a "discovery" event there may have better odds than elsewhere.  But, even at Launch, lots of the judges seemed to have already interacted with many of the supposed virgin companies.  It's a tightly knit group of highly interconnected entrepreneurs and investors in that area, and they're not easily surprised.