Joomla Login LightBox powered by WowJoomla.com

Angel investors would get a 25 percent credit for backing a business that's already qualified for a federal research and development grant program for small businesses.

Angel investors will get a federal tax cut for investing in government-funded technology start-ups under proposed legislation.
 
Five members of Congress – including Jared Polis, the founder of Proflowers.com and Bluemountain.com and a first-term Democrat from Colorado – are proposing a new tax break that would provide a 25 percent credit for an equity investment in a company that has already qualified for a federal research and development grant program for small businesses.  

Under the legislation, introduced July 15 by Rep. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, the credit's value would be limited to half the size of the Small Business Innovation Research award. (The nearly 30-year-old SBIR spreads federal research largess to small businesses, requiring federal departments and agencies that spend more than $100 million in grants for outside research to set aside 2.5 percent of that for small businesses. Initial grants usually equal about $100,000 to assess the feasibility of an idea and then, at the next stage, grants of $750,000 are provided for research and development.) 

UPDATE: NASVF EXTENDS EARLY-BIRD REGISTRATION UNTIL AUGUST 22, 2010

NASVF released today the 17^th Annual Conference sessions which reflect this year’s Conference theme, “Funding Innovation-Accelerating the Economy”.  Panel experts will explore everything from the current state of Innovation Capital to Best Practices to New Paradigms that Foster Innovation to Licensing Federal Technologies….The Experts View.  To learn more about the sessions, please read below………..

State of Investing: A Current Perspective

Session Focus: The 2010 State of Innovation Capital features the industry leaders from the national and international innovation capital associations. Panel discussion will feature the leaders of ACA, NASVF, NVCA and CDVCA. The discussion will focus on the present state of the innovation capital industry, what the performance trends have indicated and what the leaders predict for the future of industry in both the short and long term.

Should States Be in the Fund of Funds Business?

Session Focus: State efforts to create capital for entrepreneurs are one of the few sources available today. We will hear from the grand-daddy of these initiatives – Oklahoma’s fund manager who also manages Arkansas; Utah’s Fund of Funds now exceeds $300 million, and Ohio which recently passed a large bond to create a pool of funds for investment.

Innovation Capital: A Woman's View

Session Focus: The panel will explore whether women entrepreneurs have less access to innovation capital than their male counterparts, possible reasons for any disparity, and potential solutions to level the playing field.

Investing in Federal Technologies-From the Lab to the Market

Session Focus:  Licensing Federal Technologies - The Experts View----This panel of Federal Tech Transfer Officers will discuss how to license, develop CRADA agreements and commercialize technologies developed by Federal labs.

Entrepreneur Formation and Education

Session Focus: Some say that entrepreneurs are "born not made", and some that entrepreneurial abilities can be taught and learned. Others hold that entrepreneurial success is driven by execution "by the book", and that it critically depends on leadership by exceptional individuals who make  smart business decisions. In this session we will explore the factors and dynamics that promote individual skills and the culture of entrepreneurship through a combination of mentorship and education.

Issues and Opportunities in University Tech Transfer

Session Focus: Academia is one of the three main sources of innovative and commercializable ideas in this country (the others being industry and government).  In this panel, we will review the proven strengths and productivity of university tech transfer up to the present, but spend the bulk of our time on several significant challenges, and potential ways of overcoming them, to realize the full innovation potential of university tech transfer.

Connecting Entrepreneurs with Opportunities

Session Focus: No entrepreneur can get to commercialization without tapping into resources provided by others. Connecting with those opportunities, whether for funding, collaborative development activities, or commercialization partners, can be a challenge. We will explore strategies for connecting with a variety of resources, all targeted at increasing the likelihood of success of the entrepreneurial venture.

Success Story: The Economic Impact of Technology Commercialization from a Federal Lab

Session Focus: Panel discussion on the successful economic impact of a technology commercialized at a Federal lab with private industry partners engaged in a CRADA and the how an tech-based economic development organization contributed to the success of the emerging company.

Joining Forces: Investor/Business Incubator Collaboration

Session Focus: This session aims to examine how incubators can become crucial allies of angel and seed investors, and clarifies the  institution of business incubation. Investors and business incubators benefit from working together. Investors that do so earlier in the incubation process benefit most and see more investment ready companies as a result. Incubators can lower the identification and transaction costs associated with investing in target firms. It can improve the allocation of social investor support to encourage investor preparation.  These symbiotic relationships can be cultivated. Successful investor/incubator collaborations adopt client-centered approaches and feature greater ecological awareness.

New Paradigms that Foster Innovation

Session Focus: Organizations are getting creative in financing technologies that accelerate their development and get inventors motivated to participate. These creative approaches are shifting away from traditional modes of financing innovation.  This session will include cutting edge innovation generators, such as the Xprize Foundation, Solar Decathlon, Investment and Venture Fund of the Republic of Tatarstan and Inspire  Michigan.

EquityNet, LLC announced the release of its new patented Business Support and Capitalization Marketplace.  This new marketplace offers EquityNet’s rapidly-increasing base of 800 entrepreneurs a diverse network of capital providers, business supporters, and service providers, including angel investors, private equity groups, government grant entities, non-profits, business incubators, SBDCs, business consultants, and other members of the U.S. and international entrepreneurial community.

Investment groups and individual investors can use the new EquityNet Marketplace to access free EquityNet deal flow, to screen their own deal flow, and to support entrepreneurs with a range of expanded capabilities.  The new marketplace integrates EquityNet’s Enterprise Analyzer screening technology so that investment entities can screen and analyze a large volume of deal flow in a fraction of the time and cost required to screen and analyze diverse, unstructured business plans.

In making the announcement, EquityNet’s co-founder and CEO, Judd Hollas, said, “We are very excited about this new release.  When combined with our mature Enterprise Analyzer technology, our new marketplace offers entrepreneurs, investors, and business supporters an unrivaled suite of capabilities.  No other system combines EquityNet’s patented web-based enterprise planning, analysis, and optimization capabilities with a network of capital providers, business supporters, and service providers.”

Dr. Josh Eno, EquityNet’s CTO and lead developer of the marketplace said, “We designed the marketplace interfaces and functional capabilities with our end users in mind.”  Streamlined and intuitive, the new system is already receiving praise from users who appreciate the efficiency of coupling such functional depth with pleasing ease-of-use.  Dr. Eno continued, "We look forward to providing our user base increasingly advanced capabilities in new releases over the coming year.”

Any capital provider, business supporter, or service provider can easily register an EquityNet account and create a free marketplace profile in less than 5 minutes.

Click here to setup a free investor profile.
Click here to setup a free business supporter profile.
Click here to register as an entrepreneur and view the marketplace.

EquityNet is a member, sponsor and will be exhibiting at the 2010 NASVF Annual Conference in Baltimore, October 13-15, 2010. 

Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania's President and CEO RoseAnn Rosenthal and JumpStart Ohio's CEO Ray Leach were appointed by U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke to the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. 

The National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship will support President Obama's innovation strategy by helping to develop policies that foster entrepreneurship and identifying new ways to take great ideas from the lab to the marketplace to drive economic growth and create jobs. Locke made the announcement at a U.S. Department of Commerce University Innovation Forum at the University of Michigan, where participants discussed the role of universities in innovation, economic development, job creation and commercialization of federally funded research.

“America's innovation engine is not as efficient or as effective as it needs to be, and we are not creating as many jobs as we should,” Locke said. “We must get better at connecting the great ideas to the great company builders. The National Advisory Council will help the administration develop a broader strategy to spur innovation and enable entrepreneurs to develop breakthrough technologies and dynamic companies, and to create jobs all across America.

“I want to extend my gratitude to the leaders selected to The National Advisory Council. Their work will be a key component of America’s economic recovery.”

Throughout U.S. history, basic research in public and private sector research labs has spawned new technologies and inventions that led to new businesses. And those entrepreneurial businesses have been important drivers of job creation. Firms less than five years old have accounted for nearly all net new jobs in America over the last 30 years. Yet, as a share of gross domestic product, American federal investment in the physical sciences and engineering research has dropped by half since 1970.

Since taking office, the president has taken significant steps to turn this trend around. The Recovery Act included $100 billion to support groundbreaking innovations in diverse fields, from healthcare IT and health research to smart grids and high speed trains. Last fall, the president announced a National Innovation Strategy, which called for doubling the budgets of agencies including the National Science Foundation, to better support basic research at our nation's universities. And the president's 2011 budget – while freezing domestic discretionary spending overall – increases funding for civilian research and development by $3.7 billion, or nearly 6 percent.

The National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship will help build on this aggressive agenda. Members of the council include serial entrepreneurs, university presidents, investors and non-profit leaders. Steve Case, Mary Sue Coleman, and Desh Deshpande will serve as Co-Chairs. See the full list of council members below.

JumpStart Ventures, which invests in and partners with innovative, early-stage companies in Northeast Ohio, recently closed two new investments. These investments, which are coupled with intensive entrepreneurial development assistance, bring the total number of investments made by JumpStart Ventures to 13 investments in the past 12 months.

A $250,000 investment commitment went to CoverMyMeds LLC, the newest JumpStart Ventures portfolio company. The Twinsburg, Ohio healthcare technology and services company has developed web and phone-based tools that expedite and automate the submission of Prior Authorization (PA) requests to patients’ health insurance plans. PA and other Coverage Determination forms are required after coverage of a patient’s prescription has been rejected by their health plan. Before CoverMyMeds, submitting a PA was a manual process, and universally frustrating and expensive for physician offices and pharmacies. Because of this, PAs often were not submitted, leading some patients to go without needed medication. CoverMyMeds’ tools cut the process to less than five minutes, a reduction of at least 70 percent. The company will use the fund and entrepreneurial development assistance from JumpStart Ventures to further develop its launched product and begin the process of integrating its system into the doctor, pharmacy, and insurer work streams.

“CoverMyMeds offers pharmacies and physicians a simple, easy-to-use solution to a complex problem,” said CoverMyMeds Co-Founder Sam Rajan, R.Ph. “Because of this, the value proposition to our clients is the ability to capture lost revenue at a very reasonable cost.” Rajan and Co-Founder Alan Scantland were previously on the senior management team at MemberHealth, a pharmacy benefits management company in Solon, where they led a management team that grew the company from $55 million to $1.3 billion. MemberHealth was acquired by Universal American Financial Corporation for $630 million.

JumpStart Ventures also invested an additional $100,000 in existing portfolio company, ECHOGEN Power Systems of Akron. ECHOGEN has developed a proprietary waste heat to power engine for use in power generation, industrial, and commercial market sectors. “ECHOGEN’s Waste Heat Recovery System Beta Test Program with an Ohio utility is on track and we expect continued positive results to support our commercialization initiatives,” said Michael Persichilli, VP of Business Development and Strategic Relationships. “The level of interest among energy-intensive industries, utilities, and strategic partners has been exciting.” This investment, which brings JumpStart Ventures’ total amount invested to $500,000, will be used to complete development of a second pilot engine that will improve upon cost position and performance compared to the first engine.

The 13 investments made by JumpStart Ventures include nine investments in new companies and four additional investments in existing portfolio companies and is a fiscal year record for the organization. Since inception, JumpStart Ventures has made 64 investments in 48 companies. For more information on Jumpstart Ventures, please view the interview with Ray Leach from Jumpstart in this week's publication under "Angels Just Wanna Have Fund" or visit (www.jumpstartinc.org/ventures)

Jumpstart Venture is a member of NASVF - Richard Miler, Editor