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| July 17, 2008 | Volume 12 Issue 28 |
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Editor: George Lipper | |
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(Please scroll down for the full story) -- The Best Networking Conference Ever -- Limited Partners Add $9.1B to Venture Pot Despite Sour Public-Offering Market -- A Venture Capital Crunch? -- What Venture Capital Crunch? -- Venture-Backed Firms Seek Access to U.S. Aid -- The Anatomy of Angel Networks -- Cincinnati Awash in Venture Capital Cash -- A Venture to Bring Diversity to the Venture Capital Industry -- Revenues Top $5B for N.J.'s Growing Biotech Industry -- Maryland Biotech Industry: The State Must Build Stronger Ties to Investors -- Biotech Experts and Policymakers Applaud Massachusetts Stimulus Package -- T-Gen and Teammates Gets $3M to Study Brain Cancer -- IBM Commits $1.6 Billion to Expansion in Upstate New York -- Some Welcome News for Michigan -- A Rash State (Taxpayer) Incentives Chasing Economic Growth This Week in Tennessee, Alabama, Chicago, North Carolina and Texas -- Tampa Bay Offers $30 Million in Incentives Deal for Massachusetts Tech Company Draper -- Intel Capital Raising Its Stake in Clean-Tech -- Innovation Fuels Solar Power Drive -- The Man Who Dared to Question Ethanol -- The Growth Solution -- Where Were They and What Were They Doing Before They Became Entrepreneurs? -- Computer Grads Lag Even As Jobs Opportunities Grow -- Seminars & Conferences The Best Networking Conference Ever The 15th annual NASVF conference begins with a welcome reception on Wednesday evening, September 10th. We'll have up-to-the-minute sessions Thursday and Friday on how to create and raise a fund, make the best investments, understand new industry trends, and manage your investees. Thursday evening is our gala reception held at the Detroit Institute of Arts, and after Friday sessions we will have our closing lunch. By Friday at 2 pm, you will have had an information and networking-packed 48 hours! Take a look at the program we've lined up for sharing fresh ideas, then register. This year's conference is especially designed to optimize attendee participation with lots of opportunity for Q&A. We look forward to attendees sharing the latest strategies in state sponsored venture capital, support of angel incentives, fresh ideas in technology transfer and other strategies to help transform the economy and remain competitive in the emerging growth climate. NASVF 2008 Conference Registration Limited Partners Add $9.1B to Venture Pot Despite Sour IPO Market Wall Street is in its deepest slump in years, but megabuck investors like pension funds and university endowments are putting more money into venture capital funds than they were a year ago. Seventy-one VC funds raised $9.1 billion nationwide in the second quarter of 2008 - a 3 percent increase over the $8.8 million raised in the second quarter of 2007: San Jose Mercury News National Venture Capital Association Media Release A Venture Capital Crunch? Entrepreneurs still remember the dot-com crash that rocked the world economy almost a decade ago. Now there's something else to worry about: A slow deflation of investment. Industry watchers say today they're seeing the weakest market for venture capital in decades: US News & World Report What Venture Capital Crunch? There's no capital crunch in Silicon Valley. Despite turmoil in the stock market, jitters about mortgage financiers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the worst market for initial public offerings in decades, big investors continue to pour money into venture capital funds. Investments in information technology, life sciences, and environmental technologies continue to drive the market. As the venture capital market becomes more global, Asia emerges as an attractive location for investments: Business Week Venture-Backed Firms Seek Access to U.S. Aid A fight is brewing between venture capitalists and some small businesses over VC-controlled companies' eligibility for federal aid. At stake are billions of dollars in grants and contracts disbursed through the government's low-profile Small Business Innovation Research program, which funds early-stage research in areas ranging from potential cancer cures to top-secret products for the military: Wall Street Journal Seeing both sides. The two worlds of VC-backed start-ups and SBIR grants have mixed like oil and water historically due to a key restriction in grant eligibility: start-ups that are 51% or more owned by VCs do not qualify for SBIR or SBTR grants. Thus, a young start-up in a field relevant to the government grant world has a conundrum when it considers taking VC money - it no longer will be eligible to receive non-dilutive government grants: Jeff Bussgang Blog The Anatomy of Angel Networks Dr. David Saad of Stanford writes an instructive piece on the value of hurding as 'critical to angel funding.' There are four main sources of funding including: Individual angel investors. angel networks, angel funds and even (although not frequently) the public market: Always On Entrepreneurs play an increasingly important role in Montana’s economic development because entrepreneurs drive business innovation across all sectors. Governor Schweitzer recognizes that entrepreneurs in Montana face many common challenges, including developing business acumen and making connections with experts and mentors. But often the greatest challenge is raising capital. Angel investors are stepping in to fill the gap for many startups with emerging technologies that are frequently viewed as too risky for banks and other financing: Montana Angel Network Should an entrepreneur be cautious about sharing his/her idea with angels because they don't want the idea duplicated? Susan Schreter responds to the question in her Seattle Post-Intelligencer blog: Seattle Post-Intelligencer Meanwhile, Southern California’s Tech Coast Angels surpassed the billion dollar mark in attracting third party and venture capital funding to its portfolio companies. "This billion-dollar milestone demonstrates economic impact," says TCA’s Board Chairman Frank Peters. "It shows that we've succeeded in making an overwhelmingly positive impact on Southern California start-up companies while enhancing our local economy at the same time." On its way to reaching this milestone, Tech Coast Angels has funded 150 startup companies. Cincinnati Awash in Venture Capital Cash Take everything you've heard about scarce capital and throw it aside. Cincinnati's venture capital funds are pumping money into the economy, with the recent flurry of investment activity as heavy as many can remember: Business First of Columbus A Venture to Bring Diversity to the Venture Capital Industry Austin Ventures does not take the pursuit of a new partner lightly. The group spent eight months conducting a nationwide search, general partner Chris Pacitti said. During that time, Pacitti and his colleagues brought in more than 20 candidates. And when they recently selected their newest partner, they picked someone who fits the demographics of the venture capital industry. In fact, he fits the demographics of the industry all too well: Austin American Statesman Revenues Top $5B for N.J.'s Growing Biotech Industry New Jersey's biotechnology industry continues to grow both in the number of public and private companies and in the number of employees, according to a report released last week by state industry trade group BioNJ. The report estimated revenue for both public and private companies at more than $5 billion: Philadelphia Business Journal Maryland Biotech Industry: State Must Build Stronger Ties to Investors Maryland life science leaders say it will take more than $1.1 billion for the state to emerge as the next national biotech hot spot. Governor Martin O'Malley unveiled plans to increase state tax credits, grants and capital infrastructure by 2020 to lure a larger piece of the $29 billion life science industry: Baltimore Business Journal Biotech Experts and Policymakers Applaud Massachusetts Stimulus Package SFor life sciences companies, the road to Massachusetts is paved with a law providing $1 billion in tax incentives and spending, but the practical challenges of making the vision reality continue to trouble some observers: Boston Business Journal T-Gen and Teammates Gets $3M to Study Brain Cancer A California foundation has awarded a $3 million grant to an Arizona TGen-led research team that will study the genetic roots of brain cancer. TGen's Michael Berens will oversee the project that will include scientists from Ohio State University, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, University of Alabama at Birmingham, University of California-San Francisco, Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Mayo Clinic of Rochester, Minn., Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and Van Andel Research Institute in Grand Rapids: Arizona Republic IBM Commits $1.6 Billion to Expansion in Upstate New York IBM, with the help from New York state taxpayers, will pour more than $1.6 billion into expanding the company's chip manufacturing and research operations. The effort is expected to create at least 325 new jobs at the University at Albany's nanotechnology center and another 675 at a separate facility upstate: Albany Times-Union Some Welcome News for Michigan Southeastern Michigan will become the home of the world headquarters of an $11 billion joint plastics venture between Dow Chemical Co. and Petrochemical Industries of Kuwait, bringing with it $100 million in investment in Michigan and as many as 800 high-paying jobs, says Governor Jennifer Granholm: Detroit News Just a few days ago DTE Energy said it is getting ready to spend billions of dollars on alternative energy investments in Michigan, boosting the state's efforts to become a leader in that rapidly growing market: Detroit Free Press As job losses, foreclosures and other woes continue to batter Michigan, an unlikely savior has emerged from the halls of academia. For the first time, the University of Michigan, one of the nation's top research institutions, is rolling out the welcome mat for local businesses, eager to help them utilize the school's enormous resources. These include such things as faculty consulting, laboratory equipment, research projects and professional development classes: Detroit Free Press A Rash State (Taxpayer) Incentives Chasing Economic Growth This Week in Tennessee, Alabama, Chicago, North Carolina and Texas Michigan was an also-ran for a new Volkswagen assembly plan. Volkswagen announced Tuesday that it will build the billion-dollar plant in Chattanooga, ending an eight-month search for a site that finally came down to a competition between Tennessee and Alabama: The Tennessean Alabama was disappointed. Officials there said they offered nearly $400 million in incentives and made an all-out push to persuade the German automaker to pick a wheat field in Huntsville as the ideal site for the plant. Now, they hope there is some spillover effect from the VW operation, which should cast massive economic ripples: Birmingham News Chicago picked up a chip in the pony-up-more-incentives sweepstakes, landing the corporate headquarters, of a joint venture of two of the biggest U.S. beer operations for "just $20 million". MillerCoors announced it will call Chicago home, adding 300 to 400 jobs, a tiny number for an economy the size of Chicago's, say economic development experts. Still, it's a symbolic victory for a city that values its identity as a business crossroads: Chicago Tribune Also this week, North Carolina backers of a biodefense lab got an infusion of cash that changes the dynamics of the debate and raises questions about the use of public funds. The Golden LEAF Foundation, which manages half of the state's money from a national settlement with cigarette makers, awarded $262,248 to pay for newspaper ads, a Web site and other initiatives that lab supporters want: Raleigh News & Observer More than four years after Garland, Texas voters agreed to take on $23.7 million in debt to spark a Bass Pro Shops development, city officials say progress has been slow and the cost has been substantial: Dallas Morning News Yet plans to demolish Buffalo's venerable Memorial Auditorium to make way for a Bass Pro Shops store won initial City approval this week: Buffalo News Tampa Bay Offers $30 Million in Incentives Deal for Massachusetts Tech Company Draper Florida and Tampa Bay pledged millions to lure SRI International to St. Petersburg two years ago, predicting more high-tech heavyweights would follow. Round 2 now seems to be unfolding. The state and local governments on both sides of Tampa Bay are budgeting a total of $30-million to woo a Massachusetts firm that makes tiny machines for biomedical and defense products. Under the proposed deal, Charles Stark Draper Laboratories of Cambridge would open satellite offices in St. Petersburg and at the University of South Florida in Tampa, creating at least 165 high-paying jobs plus $50-million in new research grants for the university. St. Petersburg Times Intel Capital Raising Its Stake in Clean-Tech Intel Capital is boosting its investments in clean technology startups as a way to develop new sources of power for Intel processors. The chipmaker's corporate venture arm, one of Silicon Valley's largest, said this week it put 24 million euros in a German company, Sulfurcell, which converts sunlight into electricity by using modules coated with a thin metallic film: San Francisco Chronicle Innovation Fuels Solar Power Drive Solar power, which has been the next big thing on the energy horizon for decades, may finally be reaching a tipping point. Long considered far too expensive to be a viable power source, solar energy is now benefiting from technological innovation, environmental concerns and the ever-rising cost of fossil fuels. In the latest discovery, an MIT team yesterday announced it had developed a new way to concentrate solar beams, potentially reducing the cost of solar panels: Boston Globe The Man Who Dared to Question Ethanol It wasn’t too long ago that a loose coalition of anti-ethanol forces was bemoaning the futility of its fight. After failing to block huge new ethanol mandates in the Senate last December, Jay Truitt, until recently the chief lobbyist for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, complained about the “fervor” and “spirituality” that surrounded ethanol on Capitol Hill. “You can’t get anyone to consider that there is a consequence to these actions,” he said, adding, “We think there will be a day when people ask, ‘Why in the world did we do this?’ ” New York Times The Growth Solution With America's new economic realities, an entrepreneurial agenda is in order. Huge domestic challenges confront our next presidents (none of which is fully resolvable by a single president): ensuring greater access to and affordability of healthcare, addressing our looming entitlements crisis, making significant headway against poverty, and restraining man-made climate change. Carl Schramm and Robert Litan of the Kauffman Foundation share their look into potential solutions: The American Where Were They and What Were They Doing Before They Became Entrepreneurs? Discovering innovation economic investment opportunities in your local economy faces two challenges right at the top of the deal creation funnel. First, you need a road map to anticipate the source and the supply of new ideas for technological innovation. Second, you need to find the supply of entrepreneurs who will commercialize the new ideas in either new ventures or in existing enterprises: iStock Analyst Rocket Ventures, the venture capital wing of the Regional Growth Partnership, has more than $22 million in state and private grant funds to aid northwest Ohio businesses. But area businesses have struggled to secure local and state funds for high-technology research. In a five-year period when Ohio's Third Frontier program gave out 224 grants worth $665 million, northwest Ohio received just 16 grants worth $46.5 million, or 7 percent of the total: Toledo Blade Computer Grads Lag Even As Job Opportunities Grow Computer science is one of the fastest-growing job sectors in Sacramento, it pays well, often doesn't require a four-year degree – but local community college students are still shunning it. And Sacramento area college students aren't taking the kinds of classes – or seeking the degrees – that could help land those jobs: Sacramento Bee A high-profile push by American business groups to double the number of U.S. bachelor's degrees awarded in science, math and engineering by 2015 is falling way behind target, a new report says. In 2005, 15 prominent business groups warned that a lack of expert workers and teachers posed a threat to U.S. competitiveness, and said the country would need 400,000 new graduates in the so-called STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields by 2015: USA Today Investor and Entrepreneur Seminars & Conferences Detroit, MI Sept. 10-12, 2008 - 15th Annual Conference of the National Association of Seed & Venture Funds Early Bird Registration Now Open Offered by Our Friends: Wichita, KS, ID September 4, 2008 -5th Annual Great Plains Capital Conference Great Plains Capital Conference Sun Valley, ID September 9-11, 2008 - Venture Capital in the Rockies Venture Capital in the Rockies Baltimore, MD September 18 2008 - Johns Hopkins Neuroscience Investors Conference Johns Hopkins Neuroscience Investors Conference Sioux Falls, SD October 22, 2008 - South Dakota Innovation Expo South Dakota Enterprise Institute Scottsdale, AZ December 10-11, 2008 - Invest Southwest Capital Comference Invest Southwest Subscribe to NASVF NetNews Unsubscribe from NASVF NetNews 
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    i2E was created in 1997 in response to the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology’s (OCAST) initiative to establish a center to support technology commercialization. Through our various programs i2E provides Oklahoma entrepreneurs, college students and researchers with the knowledge, skills and access to capital for turning innovations into enterprises  NASVF is accepting membership inquiries from organizations and individuals who build their local economies through investment and facilitation of investment in entrepreneurial ventures. Review our Member Benefits and submit your Inquiry Form today! Members Have a tough seed/venture capital question? Let NASVF provide the answers! Check out the newest member-only feature, "AskNASVF". This member exclusive email service is provided to help our members network and learn among the industry's top innovation capital leaders.   |