BNN hits the mark with new Pitch show

Aaaahh. A new way for entrepreneurs to get support — and it doesn’t involve getting money from taxpayers.

Yesterday’s “The Pitch” show on BNN was plenty of fun (see prior post “Want to pitch your new deal on BNN?” Nov 17-10). The two pitching CEOs did well, and definitely increased the visibility of their firms. And based upon the comments and emails I’ve received, BNN’s Producers are on the money with this one. Naturally, host Andy Bell is perfect for the role.

I’m confident that many of my VC pals will enjoy getting into the Fonolo story. Shai Berger, Fonolo’s CEO and co-founder, seems to be getting good revenue traction within some important verticals. And I give him credit for his effort on the marketing front, with his own CEO blog at www.shaiberger.com, a Twitter account @shaiberger, and good corporate bumpf.

The second pitch was by Dennis Meharchand, CEO of Valt.X Technologies Inc.. According to Dennis, Valt.X Technologies Inc. has developed technology to secure computers with “absolute certainty” via Valtx Absolute Security for Windows (MagicSecure). It is at the commercialization stage, with 21 issued patents and 39 patent applications. It has raised lots of money from individual investors, and may well be at the doorstep of meaningful revenue.

John Varghese, CEO of VentureLink and one of the VC panelists, asked the key question: the company has been around for 8 or 9 years, so what gives you the confidence to say things are about to take-off? Dennis handled the question well, but I had a hard time believing the claim that the Anti?Virus/Anti?Spyware software suites from Symantec and McAfee “don’t work”.

I’ve got McAfee at home — should I ask for a refund?

As John said: “I’d like to dig in more”. Which is a compliment when delivered by an experienced venture capitalist.

If you missed the episode, you can see the rerun here. Looking forward to the next batch of pitches.

MRM