The odds are not good. Nine out of every 10 internet startups that pitch to Ido Sarig leave empty-handed. Even those that make it to a second interview are unlikely to persuade him to provide funding. He estimates that just 1% have a product that makes him want to invest.
If it's tough for US internet companies to get buy-in from people like Sarig – whose Intercept Ventures plans to invest around $170m over the next four years – it's even harder for firms from Britain, where such venture capitalists are hard to find. After all, Silicon Valley investors get to hear about the next big thing while playing golf in Palo Alto: why should they cross the Atlantic to look for talent?
"If I was working there I would think all the good stuff happens there," says David Courtier-Dutton, a British internet entrepreneur. "How many UK companies have made more than a ripple? Friends Reunited, Bebo …" He pauses. "I'm running out now."
Since the moneymen have no need to look abroad for talent, Courtier-Dutton and the owners of 19 other British startups brought their wares to California in a trip dubbed Web Mission 2008. If Highway 101 – the Silicon Valley freeway that connects firms like Google and Facebook – really is paved with gold then this was their chance to grab a piece.
Hub of the web
"It doesn't take a genius to work out that the valley is the hub of the web," says Oli Barrett, who organised the trip using funding from the Foreign Office, sponsors and the startups themselves.
Among them was Oxford graduate David Langer, who started Groupspaces after becoming frustrated with the lack of good online tools to support university clubs. His site, founded with fellow graduate Andy Young, aims to make life simple for club owners. It manages lists of members, handles invites to events and meshes with social networks such as Facebook.
In jeans and a slightly crumpled white shirt, Langer looked very much the recent graduate as he stood up to pitch. Most of the entrepreneurs used buzzword-laden presentations and reeled off the list of awards their site had won. Young mentioned his table tennis experience (he represented England at junior level).
But his relative lack of business knowhow did not seem to matter much. Young and Langer had already secured initial funding back home, but received two investment offers worth hundreds of thousands of dollars during Web Mission.
Courtier-Dutton's music site Slicethepie also attracted attention. Bands who sign up to the site have their music reviewed by users, who can then choose to buy shares in groups they like. For unsigned bands, it's a way of raising money. For fans, those shares can turn a profit if a record company decides to sign the band.
Slicethepie was one of the more mature sites on the trip, having already secured over £1m in funding from British investors. But Courtier-Dutton says he had offers of more during the week he was in California and, equally importantly, got to meet key people behind social networking sites.
Halo effect
He attributes that in part to the "halo" effect created by Jim Buckmaster, CEO of Craigslist, one of Web Mission's high-profile supporters.
Buckmaster invited the entrepreneurs, as well as potential investors, to brunch the day after they arrived. One side of his house looks out across San Francisco's historic Alamo Square and out back is a view across the city up to Haight and Ashbury, the centre of the famous sixties hippy scene. It's not a bad setting in which to make a pitch.
Michael Birch, who as founder of the social networking site Bebo has the relaxed air of someone who is about to cash in, added more Silicon Valley glamour to the trip. His company is often touted as a symbol of British web success, but while Birch is a Brit, he developed Bebo from an attic office of a building close to Buckmaster's.
Nonetheless, the reflected glow from a man who is in the process of selling his company for a reported $850m helped cast the other site owners in a flattering light. It also motivated them.
"What happened with Bebo is unbelievable," says Peter Ward, director of Where Are You Now?, a travel-themed social networking site. "Can you tell me any other way of earning millions of pounds in three years?"
Still, despite the attentions of some of the Valley's most wanted, the Web Mission entrepreneurs had their work cut out.
Sarig, who says he hears five pitches a week, left before half of the firms had a chance to make their five-minute presentations. Afterwards he was lukewarm with his praise, describing some of the companies as "interesting" and others as "ho-hum".
