I attended the Canadian Financing Forum in Vancouver last week, to get a feel for the venture capital industry in Canada, and especially given the current environment. Although I had some pre-conceived notions of what might be going on, I wanted to see for myself and share my observations from their panels, and from talking individually with a few.

First of all, the opinions vary. Some VCs are downright pessimistic, regardless of what side of the border they're from. The ones that are fully invested moreso, because they have companies that they have to perform triage on, to preserve capital to keep the better ones going. VCs with new funds (or at least money to invest) had a different point of view, in that it would be a good time to invest, especially in good early stage ones, because in the two years to get them going, things will have gotten better by then.

In fact for some, investing now with a team that has 'conviction' and good business sense seemed to be a strategic advantage, as many feel that VCs have over invested previously, breeding too many competitors. The slowdown to them was seen as a barrier to entry, and a good thing for their investments and would-be investments.