The Germinator, Inc.

Inkspot signs collaboration agreement with Red Hat

Keith Cotterill — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 09:13:36 +0000

Congratulations to the Inkspot team in Newcastle, UK. Their collaboration with Red Hat raises a good question – what requirements in academic research are driving capabilities in cloud computing?
Some disciplines (bio-computing, neuroscience, drug discovery, etc) need short burst access to massive computing resources. Changes in funding around the world are driving increased online, secure collaboration between universities and companies. These academic and scientific needs have profound implications for the commerical world. Watch this space !

Exit: Sprout (Chipin)

Keith Cotterill — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 15:42:01 +0000

Best wishes to the Sprout team !

http://venturebeat.com/2011/08/02/inmobi-acquires-sprout/

Summer in California

Keith Cotterill — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 23:19:36 +0000

Education; self-help online training; faith-based technology infrastructure; clean energy research platforms; collaborative healthcare; fashion; university research; behavioral economics, and much more…

Get your face on

Keith Cotterill — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 10:20:53 +0000

Cool new London-based startup viewsy. Nice idea, elegantly done.

I love Collabrx

Keith Cotterill — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 17:31:36 +0000

Collabrx in Palo Alto are doing great things. While drug companies thrash in ever-decreasing circles, and jealously guard information that might be better shared more widely, Collabrx is trying to open up access to doctors, patients and researchers that might lead to breakthroughs in therapy development. Take a look.

Clean Tech is two markets

Keith Cotterill — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 17:31:17 +0000

Capital-light and capital-intensive.

Capital-light is interesting and typically software and services driven – optimization of power consumption, architectures for utility billing, consulting plays, etc. I can play here.

Capital-intensive is beyond my personal reach. Physical plant and equipment for wave, solar, wind and bio needs multiple millions. Lower risk in many ways but larger capital requirements.

This sounds obvious but many people do not see the difference.

Startup ideas should be crazy

germinatorfund — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 06:57:53 +0000

Nice article in TechCrunch today, reminding me of a good friend who says if a startup’s ideas are not crazy, its probably not worth doing.

Welcome to The Germinator

germinatorfund — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:44:30 +0000

The Germinator, Inc. was started in 2005 by two experienced entrepreneurs from the software industry.

After building several successful companies, we noticed that the investment world for software was changing. Conventional venture investing was becoming less relevant, as many of the large automation trends (ERP, CRM, eCommerce) had reached maturity, and the cost of starting a new company had lowered with the advent of open source platforms and “free” development capabilities.

We agree with MR Rangaswami that software has become a “land of a thousand niches” – developing and exploiting new opportunities required a new mindset.

Germinator was created to spot new opportunities, get in very early, possibly even at foundation stage, and add value to the three key concerns of early stage companies: customer acquisition, product definition and securing funding. We’ve been making investments and taking hands-on roles in young companies ever since…