Hi Wayne,
You must be talking about Verizon right? Verifone has no ties to
Hawaii. They are the world's largest telecom with stakes in several
European countries, South America and in Japan. I don't even think
Verifone has any kind of market in the US.
There are a few companies that are receiving attention within the VC
field. Mainly with biotechnology. Two companies that are doing well are
Hoku Scientific and Hawaii Biotech. There are others as well.
Virgil
On Thursday, April 22, 2004, at 12:37 PM, Hawaii Linux Institute wrote:
BTW, most participants in this forum are probably too young or too new
to have heard the story about Verifone. This is the biggest IP
success story in Hawaii. Verifone grew too big and had to be sold to
a mainland company for something like 9-digit figure. I know some of
the founders of Verifone, many of them still live on the island and
many are still actively pursuing VC activities. Several of them
invested in a company called Aquasearch, which makes microalgae and
got into a very nasty patent fight with its next door neighbor,
Cyantech.
Eventually Aquasearch filed for bankruptcy, and Cyantech did not fare
too well, either. Both companies had great technologies and are in
one of the most promissing markets, but they had to try to fight each
other to death.
Anyway, I know getting a decent paycheck is priority No. 1, but if we
ourselves can't think too much about the VC business, we sure hope
someone else on the islands will make it, and make it big. wayne
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