Venture Capital Thoughts and Reflections: Three Startup-Related Events

A few weeks ago, I had the honor of sharing the stage at InterMinas 2010 with Michael Nicklas, Brazil's leading seed-stage investor.

Michael's presentation was about the elements of a successful startup company ecosystem. Among the points raised was the indispensability of industry events in fomenting the community, and the importance of working together.

On that note I would like to announce three startup-related events.

The first is a Startup Meetup organized by ReadWriteWeb Brasil. It will be held in Belo Horizonte on Thursday, May 20th at 8 pm at a bar called Entre Folhas, which is located on Rua Major Lopes, 709. I went to the first Startup Meetup a few months ago and it was a huge success. There were a lot of entrepreneurs there as well as my distinguished colleagues from CONFRAPAR.

The second event is the launch of Desafio Brasil 2010, Brazil's leading business plan competition organized each year by the Centro de Estudos em Private Equity e Venture Capital da Fundação Getúlio Vargas de São Paulo. These guys are doing amazing work in promoting startup know-how and deserve a lot of credit for their innovation and perseverance. For more information, please visit their site here.

Finally, as many of you know DFJ FIR Capital is working with Brazil's two leading startup/entrepreneurship/technology blogs: Startupi and ReadWriteWeb Brasil, to solicit business plans for the second annual DFJ Cisco Global Business Plan Competition.

Last year, Powersave, a Rio de Janeiro-based company made it to the finals, so we are hoping that a Brazilian company will win this year!

For more information, please read the announcements posted on Startupi and ReadWriteWeb.