EBAN threw a great conference in Madrid: BizSpark went down well with the Business Angel networks (helping save their portfolio companies money in the early years always popular) and the networking was very worthwhile.

I met some great people and we heard some fantastic stories about angel investing: for me Dr Cornelius Boersch and Prof Alan Barrell really stood out. I also love Permjot’s blog.

As a thank you for moderating the session on investing internationally (“Connecting Worlds”) I received a signed copy of Modwenna’s book on angel investing.

I enjoyed the session enormously and learnt a lot from my fellow panellists: Juan from BID Network (based in NL) told us about the opportunity for investment in LATAM (Juan thinks the best “natural born” entrepreneurs are in Columbia and you have to remember two things to succeed: wake up early and have a tan); Sharon from Astia gave some great insight into what seems a missed opportunity for female entrepreneurs and investors (3% of EBAN members are women and 7% of VC funding goes to women-led companies). Their program in the US (both coasts) and London are starting to really take off. India is next on their list.

Patrice filled us in on the dynamics of the Europe Plus Foundation helping connect companies in the US and Europe. They are hosting a World Investment Conference in France in June.

Though I felt my skills as a moderator will not be in demand in the future, I received great feedback (and great questions from the floor) from David Rose from Angelsoft and Stuart Rock, editor of Real Business and Real Deals.

While angel networks’ formation in Europe is on the increase, and co-investment between angels and VCs also seems to be a trend, some are still not convinced that the equity gap has gone away or even narrowed in the past few years. So I was pleased to see this intention by some well-known European serial entrepreneurs to invest in the next generation with the formation of a fairly substantial early stage fund.

You can see a bit more about my first day at the EBAN event here. Aside from the conference itself I managed to take in a bit of culture and would highly recommend a visit to the Museo Reina Sofia if you are in the city and like a bit of Picasso, Dali and Miro. For art of a different kind (tapas, wine and ambience) try the other Reina. Yum.