We wanted to apologise to anyone trying to register for the BLN Growth Forum over the weekend to take advantage of the Early Booking Discount. Unfortunately, there has been a technical problem with the booking process that means that you will not have been able to book for the day.

This was really NOT a shallow attempt to squeeze more money out of you!

The problem has now been rectified but we are grateful to all those who pointed this out. We will extend the early booking discount to all those that have been in touch and to anyone that registers to attend until 11.00 am on June 8th.

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Join us on 15th July for the BLN Growth Forum in partnership with BDO & Silicon Valley Bank.

Our speakers have created over $10 billion of company value from zero. Check them out here.

Earlybird discounts available until 7th June.

• Intel chips & Linux OS rule in the world of supercomputers. Great graphics. http://bit.ly/dlBbh9 #
• VCs backing startups in UK is often seen as BAD thing, esp if they then don't lead later round. @dharmesh #angelbootcamp #
• RT @MartinLeuw: What are the secret ingredients of business growth? http://bit.ly/cUHcHu #business #growth #

Following our BLN BDO CFO Breakfast last week we were interviewed by the FT for a Report on Sustainable Banking. This came out today. Our Breakfast meeting discussed the state of the equity and debt markets with CFOs and FDs of high growth businesses across the region. They key takeaway from this discussion for me was that banks won’t start lending just because governments tell them to. They will only do so when their shareholders start asking the banks what their growth prospects are rather than trying to assess their exposure to risk. This happened in the US earlier in the year and this is the sort of trend that the UK will likely follow in fairly quick succession. Until then, companies are forced to wait.

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Join us on 15th July for the BLN Growth Forum in partnership with BDO & Silicon Valley Bank.

Our speakers have created over $10 billion of company value from zero. Check them out here.

Earlybird discounts available until 7th June.

Following our BLN BDO CFO Breakfast last week we were interviewed by the FT for a Report on Sustainable Banking.

Our Breakfast meeting discussed the state of the equity and debt markets with CFOs and FDs of high growth businesses across the region. They key takeaway from this discussion for me was that banks won’t start lending just because governments tell them to. They will only do so when their shareholders start asking the banks what their growth prospects are rather than trying to assess their exposure to risk. This happened in the US earlier in the year and this is the sort of trend that the UK will likely follow in fairly quick succession. Until then, companies are forced to wait.

There is something else that is different about the US approach.

In today’s FT article, Phil Cox, Head of Silicon Valley Bank in the UK comments on the difference between US and UK Commercial banks:

“Banks in the US are more used to considering these factors, along with management expertise, when deciding to offer loans, says Phil Cox, head of strategy for Europe and the Middle East at Silicon Valley Bank, which provided Twitter with its first chequebook.

“European banks have more of a penny-pinching attitude to small businesses and less understanding of entrepreneurs, says Mr Cox. “Often, even when a bank has agreed a loan, this will be drip fed, so the company is continuously under a cloud and wondering where its next tranche of funding will come from.”

You can link to the FT article here.

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Join us on 15th July for the BLN Growth Forum in partnership with BDO & Silicon Valley Bank.

Our speakers have created over $10 billion of company value from zero. Check them out here.

Earlybird discounts available until 7th June.

Great to see Martin Leuw’s recent blog about the secret ingredients of business growth in the ever excellent Real Business Magazine.

He uses a great example about how Walt Disney financed the huge cost of building his first theme park in 1955 when his banks told him to do the same thing that most banks are telling companies today. Visit Martin Leuw’s blog to find out how – I don’t want to steal all the best stories and their site is well worth a visit anyway.

Of course we were equally delighted to get a mention for the BLN Growth Forum on July 15th. Martin has slightly blown the gaff on our detailed instructions to speakers:

“(1) No PowerPoint

(2) Talk about your worst mistakes and what you’ve learned from them.”

Err, that is it.

It seems that we are already getting some BLN networking going though as a number of the speakers are planning on meeting in the coming weeks to plan how they are going to tackle their sessions and maximise the exposure and learning that we can gain from their business mistakes. We are humbled and grateful to you all for your input and can’t wait until we all get together.

We were touched by Martin’s comment:

“To me, that’s what entrepreneurialism is all about and I’m really excited about the event.”

Thanks Martin. So are we!

Join us on 15th July for the BLN Growth Forum in partnership with BDO & Silicon Valley Bank.

Our speakers have created over $10 billion of company value from zero. Check them out here.

Earlybird discounts available until 7th June.

• Who knew? My Lenovo laptop screen makes a terrible trampoline. http://twitpic.com/1qnbms http://twitpic.com/1qnc4t #
• Strangely excited to be setting alarm for 3.30 to get to @bizspark Paris tomorrow. Always top event. Go @bindik #
• .@nicholaslovell g in reply to nicholaslovell #
• Impossibly chic. There are people on this Eurostar that spent at least 3 hours dressing & putting on make up. It's 5.15 #
• Chicness offset. Couple behind me clearly on way to Paris for World Hawking & Coughing Championships. #
• If #Bizspark pitches were a running race, @Artesians would have lapped the other runners, twice, by now. #ecn #
• To get best value for a company, you don't want to sell it. You want to be bought. Bernard Liautaud @ #bizspark #ecn #
• Microsoft shows European entrepreneurial ecosystem is on fire! Blog on #Bizspark Summit. #ecn http://bit.ly/bxIr0i #
• #bizspark RT @davidsoskin Much looking forward to BLN 2010 Growth Forum at new Hauser Forum July 15th http://bit.ly/9Bzo5Y #
• Maybe I should be a VC? #bizspark #ecn http://bit.ly/cIEmr9 Props for doubling up on the prize fund. #
• Two types of Britons today: Ones with a life; Ones with time to spend a day queuing & crapping on about iPad. #
• PC World on retail park reports they have sold 4 iPads today. Guess fanboyz like to queue at the iStore. (No I haven't).1 #
• Got PDF copy of @bazv & @danversbaillieu European Venture Debt report. Woo hoo. Weekend made. http://bit.ly/cuoHkC #

Some great information from the BVCA and Winston & Strawn on the emerging Venture Debt industry in Europe. If you don’t know what venture debt is, this is a great primer. If you do know what venture debt is and want to geek out over the data, this is a great source.

“Through one of the very first quantitative studies on venture debt in Europe we found that from 1999 to the end of 2009:

• The amount of venture debt investment peaked in 2007 at £309m invested in 123 deals. Venture debt as a percentage of venture capital was 10.2% in the UK and 5.8% in Europe in the same year, its highest on record.
• Close to 400 companies have received venture debt from UK venture lenders with £425m invested into UK companies, £362m into
• European companies and £199m into the rest of the world (mostly in Israel).
• The average size of a venture loan is £2.1m with a range of £860,000 to £9m. Companies in the internet, biotech and semiconductor sectors had the highest average loan size.
• Companies raising their second round of equity were the number one recipient of venture debt. Only 18 investments have been in a first round.
• 33% of companies in one venture lenders portfolio had a turnover of less than €1m at the time of receiving a loan whereas another 41% had a turnover greater than €5m.”

You can download the excellent full report The Rise of Venture Debt in Europe right here.

Join us on 15th July for the BLN Growth Forum in partnership with BDO & Silicon Valley Bank.

Our speakers have created over $10 billion of company value from zero. Check them out here. http://growthforum2010.thebln.com/ Earlybird discounts available until 7th June.

Spent the day at the 6th Microsoft BizSpark European Summit on Growth and Entrepreneurship in Paris. There has not been much time for sightseeing although the taxi did drive me past the Eiffel Tower which is actually quite tall. Over the years this has become a must attend for early stage software businesses building on the plethora of Microsoft platforms. It also attracts an impressive array of venture capital from across Europe.

Image via Wikipedia

Compered by a relaxed and laid back Guy Kawasaki, who confessed to trying whale sushi in Oslo (very good apparently), there has been some interesting content, and some corporate marketing mostly presented in an