JPEG2000 on Sand Hill Road
One of the benchmarks of technology adoption is when the venture capital market becomes aware of the opportunity and backs that position up with investment. So, what do VCs think of JPEG2000? Hard to say at this point as I have yet to see a public announcement around a VC based investment specifically guided towards JPEG2000. There have been a number of investments being made in digital cinema, but that too is rather difficult to classify.
Be it known, we have decided to test the VC waters at BroadMotion. We are strong believers in both JPEG2000 and the advantages our technology brings to the encoding/decoding process for the format. It’s always a tough call whether to pursue external investment because that process introduces new headaches to running a business. However, we decided that if our time-to-market could be accelerated then it was worth further exploration.
On the Road Again
I will not go into too many details about our specific activities primarily because we want to keep that private. But I can say that we have spent the past month or so pitching our plan and ideas to VCs located in Vancouver and the Valley (San Jose, Palo Alto, Menlo Park). In and of itself, this has been a great learning experience because it really forces you to refine your business model, optimize your value proposition and hone your presentation skills. We had an opportunity to pitch to many groups located in the Valhalla of venture capital…that being Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park.
If you ever get a chance to pitch a business plan to one of the top tier VCs in the Valley I highly recommended the experience. You will encounter some of the best technical minds with the business savvy to back it up. We could go into a long debate on the efficiency of the venture capital market, but its their money and their rules…go play the game. These guys are smart and you need to be extremely prepared on every detail of the market, your business and your technology.
Big Picture
But do they know much about JPEG2000? In terms of the technical specifics of J2K, I would conclude the VCs lacked knowledge of the format. But that’s to be expected, their focus is a few levels above that. More importantly they recognize a number of big trends that are making JPEG2000 an interesting technology play:
- Bandwidth as a point of friction is dropping rapidly (as is processing power)
- Video is being moved around from point to point and to lots of different devices, it’s now common behavior
- Video quality is becoming increasingly more important now that capable displays are within reach of everyday consumers
That said, the value proposition of JPEG2000 as it applied into specific solutions for various markets is really quite compelling. Does that make it viable for investment…time will tell. If it was 1999 and you had the ability to invest in an online music service that was coupled with a trendy and expensive device would you take it?
P.S. - Good Eats and Drinks
Special Kudos to Vino Locale in Palo Alto (www.vinolocale.com). We snuck into this beautiful victorian house after a long day of meetings. Randy, the owner, introduced us to the wine producers of the Santa Cruz valley. He made fantastics selections for us that we nicely paired with small plates that were absolutely delicious. If you get into the Palo Alto for dinner, make a stop there and tell Randy that Chris and Jeff sent you.