The Open Source Business Conference (OSBC) 2004 has announced its final line up of venture capital (VC) and investment speakers for the March 16 and 17 conference being held at the St. Francis Hotel on Union Square in San Francisco. VC speakers will include Kevin Harvey, general partner at Benchmark Capital, and Ray Lane, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

Other VC speakers include:

• Accel Partners: Peter Fenton
• Azure Capital: Larry Augustin (founding CEO of VA Linux)
• Benchmark Capital: Kevin Harvey
• Fidelity Ventures: Dave Power
• Greylock Partners: Aneel Buhsri
• Hummer Winblad: Mitchell Kertzman
• Index Ventures: Danny Rimer
• Intel Capital: Pradeep Tagare
• InterWest Partners: Steve Bowsher
• Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers: Ray Lane, Murugan Pal
• Mayfield: Allen Morgan
• NEA: Stewart Alsop
• Sierra Ventures: Tim Guleri

OSBC organizers say the venture capital community is taking a second look at opportunities with companies focused on open source software as the foundation for high-growth businesses.

Forbes magazine in February asked, “Is Open Source the best investment opportunity in 2004?”

Recent open source projects receiving VC investments include:

• JBoss, makers of web server software, which attracted $10 million from Accel Partners and Matrix
• Scalix, built around original HP technology for mail and messaging software that runs on Linux, raised $13 million from Mayfield and NEA
• MySQL, an open source database company, received $19.5 million in a round led by Benchmark Capital

For more information about the OSBC 2004, visit the event Website.

 
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