SATISH Gupta takes the podium in one of the swank new ballrooms in Sydney's Hilton Hotel and all of a sudden, it's like a scene from the Seven Network's Dragon's Den reality show.

He's selling his company, but is anyone out there buying?

An American veteran of multiple startups, and SenSen Networks chief executive, Mr Gupta wants to sell 30 per cent of his latest baby for $1.3 million.

The audience, wealthy angel investors and venture capitalists, settled down after a light breakfast to hear two hours of elevator pitches from multiple hopefuls.

Ready to go at the forum, organised by advisory group Business Strategies International, was a games developer, an advertising software company, a digital asset management startup, a LED sign maker, and even a mobile-phone-based social networking player.

Mr Gupta is something of a serial entrepreneur, having left Cirrus Logic to found fabless semiconductor manufacturer Cradle Technologies, before hooking up with SenSen founder and University of Technology, Sydney, academic Subhash Challa.

SenSen, which develops advanced monitoring technology for security cameras, grew out of research by the university's Sensor Technology Labs.

The UTS team developed two initial products: a people-counting system and a package that identifies moving vehicles by registration plate, colour, make and speed.

The technology is on trial at UTS's Sydney city campus, and is about to be put to use on a Sydney bridge for the NSW Roads and Traffic Authority.

"At the core of this is turning the CCTV into a sensor, and that is not being done much with video footage," Mr Gupta said.

"It could be, for example, counting how many people are in a public space, or it could be a security issue."

UTS has transferred the intellectual property of the company in return for a shareholding, and the chicks are just weeks away from leaving the nest.

Now it needs money for salaries and marketing expenses.

Professor Challah has six PhDs and two post-doctoral graduates ready to get on board.

"A university shareholding is not a problem unless it's going to have control over a company's direction, and UTS understands that," Mr Gupta said. "It doesn't want to meddle or interfere."

Despite Mr Gupta's impeccable Silicon Valley credentials, US investors are unlikely to put up any cash for the time being.

"Our smarts are in Australia, so it's difficult for people 10,000km away to invest," he said.

Mr Gupta took some questions from potential investors before relinquishing the podium.

The investors, mainly high net-worth individuals, and heads of major venture capitalists and pooled development funds, were generally silent, waiting for an opportunity to have a private chat with favoured entrepreneurs.

The prize for the most unusual sales pitch went to Justin Moran, chief operating officer of social networking site funkysexy cool.com, who said killing time was the killer app for mobile networks. "I'm yet to see an app that kills time better than funkysexycool."

With the company on track to generate $500,000 in revenue this financial year, Mr Moran and funkysexycool founder Peter Bewsher, 26, are looking for $US2.5 million ($3.3 million) to fund the company's expansion into the US.

The confident duo who, after a couple of fairly staid performers, bore more than a passing resemblance to the hosts of Australian Idol, were full of interesting facts and figures, such as News Corporation's $US580 million acquisition of MySpace, or did you know FaceBook is valued at $US2 billion?

Unlike Dragon's Den, the audience was not required to publicly bid for the companies that pitched, but it was clear some got more attention than others.

Mr Gupta, for example, was buttonholed at the back of the room answering questions, but others ended their pitches to silence.

Games always attract attention, despite traditionally being eschewed by venture capitalists nervous about the industry's Hollywood-style revenue model.

Morgan Lean's Epiphany Games was no exception. Mr Lean hoped to break the industry's investment drought by emphasising the intellectual property value of his Mobile Artificial Intelligence, which allows games characters to remember each others' behaviour and learn from their encounters.

Looking for $1 million for 9 per cent of the company, Epiphany needed the cash to finish its Champions of Atlantis game and develop its artificial intelligence framework. It was BSI's 13th forum and over the past four years these events have raised $25 million.

BSI investor forums director Alan Milwidsky said for every company that presented, BSI rejected 10 to 15.

"We try to find the ones with serious depth," he said.

"Everyone should own intellectual property, and either have or be able to get a patent."

The investors in the audience treated the seminars like a beauty parade, hooking up afterwards with companies they were interested in with discussions that inevitably led to the sometimes optimistic valuations offered by the entrepreneurs.

"It's interesting for me when they think the valuation of their company is $20 million and they have no revenue, and you may think it's not worth meeting them, but if they are reasonable and sensible we will meet and discuss it with them," Technology Venture Partners director Allan Aaron said.

Some of the technologies on show were just too niche to attract the interest of the big funds and others were asking for too little from funds used to pumping $5 million to $10 million into a startup.

"A few of them, frankly, I don't think will ever raise venture capital funding," Mr Aaron said.

"They may be a success, but I don't think they will offer venture-capital-style returns. It's not a moderate success we're looking for, it has to be something that could be a very big success."

Not all investors are looking to pump that much into a startup. Divergent Capital managing director David Nelson said his company targeted lower amounts, covering many of the sums the BSI forum's participants were looking for.

He warned that startups could fall down for lack of angel investors.

"Overall, there is much less available to this kind of company in Australia compared with the US," he said.

"Australia has a very limited capital market, so unless you have a rich uncle it's hard to get up to $1 million."

Mr Nelson said funds were gentle in negotiating with founders over valuations.

"An entrepreneur can be forgiven for thinking the company is hugely valuable, but they need to understand there are many options available to people like us," he said.

The Australian