This Churchill Club panel met at Dinah’s Poolside Cafe/Hotel April 23 2008 for a breakfast panel discussion of the state of venture investing almost half way into 2008.

The backdrop, of course, being an essentially closed IPO market, a buyer’s M&A market, soaring oil prices, a second quarter of weakening consumer spending, and of course US bond and stock markets undergoing continued major turmoil due to the ongoing mortgage derivates triggered financial crisis. But this panel of leading venture and angel investing professionals for the most part characterized the private equity investment business as percolating along just fine, thank you very much.

The panel discussion was expertly moderated by Richard Brenner, Chairman of the Churchill Club and CEO of The Brenner Group, Inc. The panelists were (left to right in first photo at left): Keith Larson, VP Intel Capital; Robert Latta, Partner, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati; Eric O’Brien, Managing Director, Lightspeed Venture Partners; and Carol Sands, Managing Member & Founder, The Angels Forum (visit the event description on The Churchill Club’s site for more background on the panelists).

In a first for a Churchill Club event, a live unicast video stream of the session was broadcast via the internet to entrepreneurship students at Rochester University in Rochester, NY. Questions from the Rochester students were fielded by the panel during the Q&A session. [ SESSION SUMMARY / HIGHLIGHTS TO BE POSTED LATER THE WEEKEND OF MAY 15]