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By VStart, on March 4th, 2011
The Role of the VentureStart Network™
Last year a couple of Sacramento companies each raised significant Series A rounds from investors, mainly of whom were locally based. Those companies were:
This week both companies emerged out of stealth mode with a little more detail on their websites. You can see Cloudcruiser’s and Glue’s press releases online.
So what’s the VentureStart angle? While VentureStart is not a funding entity, many of the advisors and mentors in the VentureStart Network are local investors and C-level business people who frequently advise companies, particularly before and during the raising capital process. This was the case for both these companies. That’s a very important role for us and it’s great to see some results.
As we extend our VentureStart Network, we hope to see more successes in the future. It’s a pretty special group of people who volunteer their time to make the region a better place to start and grow a company.
By Laura Good, on September 12th, 2010
When we review companies for acceptance into the SARTA VentureStart program, we have a few questions in mind during the presentation including, “What specific help, mentoring or business assistance do you expect from the VentureStart program?”
Similarly, when you pitch to a venture capitalist, this special breed of investor will have questions on her mind. To gain insight on the mind of a venture capitalist, John Warwillow of Inc. Magazine interviewed Sam Ifergan, a venture capitalist who invests in tech companies. His article “6 Thoughts Inside the Mind of a Venture Capitalist” will help you you perfect your pitch as well as improve how you run your business. Read the article…
By VStart, on September 8th, 2010
We’ve written about the challenge of finding the “geek” to design, architect and code your great idea for a web startup in another post. Today, we saw another interesting post on the same topic that is worth reading. It outlines the options you have in getting it done — take a look.
By VStart, on July 22nd, 2010
We always advise serious entrepreneurs, especially those with big ideas, to make sure an attorney is part of their team from the very start. Not only can they set the company up correctly, they can put standard agreements in place (e.g., stock option, non-disclosure, founder buy-sell, independent contractor, and more). Having such documents can help prevent a multitude of legal issues as the business grows.
Read this article at BusinessWeek to see potential problems for Facebook when a probably “bad” agreement comes back to haunt them when they are really worth something.
Saving money as a startup is usually ingrained in entrepreneurs and spending money on attorneys Read More »»
By Laura Good, on July 20th, 2010
Last week, VentureStart graduate Chrometa, a software company based in Sacramento that’s solving the age-old time keeping dilemma for professionals who bill for time and expertise, shared a blog post on lessons learned from their initial product launch and subsequent marketing efforts. Read More »»
By VStart, on July 16th, 2010
SacMix joined our VentureStart program a while ago and are making rapid progress in becoming a known brand in the Sacramento market — if you are hungry for breakfast, brunch, lunch, happy hour, dinner or late night eats, you can always find a great deal at a restaurant close to you at www.sacmix.com.
All startups need to communicate their progress with potential customers, investors, supporters, etc. on a regular basis to keep mind share and accelerate interest. We got such a note from Tim White at SacMix today, and you can read it on Facebook. It is a good example all startups should follow.
By VStart, on April 15th, 2010
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges Explorations Workshop Friday, April 23, 2010 at 3:00 p.m. UC Davis Conference Center 2nd Floor Conference Room
The Office of Research, Office of University Development, and the Foods for Health Institute are hosting a workshop on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Grand Challenges Explorations Round 5.
Grand Challenges Explorations awards of $100,000 support early-stage research projects designed to overcome persistent bottlenecks in creating new tools that can radically improve health in the developing world. Successful projects have the opportunity to receive a Phase II grant of $1 million. Topics for Round 5 of the Grand Challenges Explorations include:
By VStart, on April 6th, 2010
Micromidas has just completed its first major round of funding, having raised $3.6 million. The funds will be used to deploy their technology at the pilot scale.
Micromidas, based in West Sacramento, develops and scales environmentally benign biological and chemical processes that produce valuable chemical and material commodities from waste biomass. The first Micromidas application for their technology is scaling a process that converts the carbon in organic wastewater into PHA (polyhydroxyalkanoate), a family of bio-degradable plastics that can be used in lieu of conventional petroleum plastics. Their process generates highly functional bio-plastic while simultaneously reducing the quantity of bio-solids that municipal utilities must pay to treat. Micromidas is Read More »»
By VStart, on March 29th, 2010
Senator Dodd’s current financial reform bill is designed to address financial reform and regulation of the big banks, including the “too big to fail” issue. But it may have unintended consequences by reducing the number of angel investors while at the same time putting regulatory hurdles in place. These hurdles will increase the time it takes (yes, even more!) for entrepreneurs to raise money, and put more bureaucracy in the way further discouraging angel investors.
There is a post on VentureBeat today that has more details and discussion. That post also has some good summary information on the SEC rules that relate to all entrepreneurs Read More »»
By VStart, on March 8th, 2010
Want to know how Venture Capitalists think about valuing your startup company? Here is an article by Scott Lenet of DFJ Frontier, who have a Sacramento office. Looks like formulas aren’t used; rather valuation is based on three things:
- Valuation of deals done on comparable companies
- Investors’ experience, and having the opportunity to see many deals, done or not
- Whether the investment return at the time the company exits (e.g., sells to another company, or does an IPO), under the best circumstances, meets the VC firm’s criteria
The article could lead one to think that a 10 times (10x) return is great for Read More »»
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