VentureStart » sac startups

Sacramento Startup Micromidas Raises Series A Round

VStart — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 18:16:40 +0000

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 led by CEO and founder, John Bissell, who received his degree in chemical engineering from UC Davis; his entire team are also UC Davis graduates.

If you’ve ever met John you will understand that his passion, focus, determination, and hard work, as well as Micromidas’ huge business potential, were the key factors in launching the company, and raising the money, initially from family, friends and angels, and then from a group of sophisticated investors.

There are some lessons here for aspiring entrepreneurs. John used every resource available to learn about the process of financing a high growth company, including many regional ones. He was inspired by the UC Davis Green TEA Academy which he attended in 2008 at Incline Village (UCD offers multiple versions of its Entrepreneurship Academy). Following the Academy, he found mentors among the Sierra Angels and others and then entered the 2009 California Cleantech Open, where Micromidas won in the Air, Water and Waste group. This created substantial publicity for the company and provided more mentors, and a network of interested supporters, something many entrepreneurs neglect and fail to build.

Along the way, he sought and received advice from VentureStart and local startup CEO’s, and was invited to and attended angel group dinners to get further insight into the ins and outs of raising money. In the entire process, we are sure that, while much of the advice was valid, it varied considerably from mentor to mentor and source to source. That’s the nature of getting a startup going; there is no absolutely right or wrong process; the entrepreneur listens, distills and then decides the best path for his or her company. And in the process they build and communicate with their network, never really knowing the path any lead will take. For Micromidas, that network worked out very well.

Congratulations to Micromidas and John!

Davis Medical Diagnostic Company Raises Series A Financing

VStart — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 17:49:30 +0000

Gold Standard Diagnostics, Inc. of Davis has just raised a Series A round from private investors. The company started in 2007 and bootstrapped its way by generating revenue from the very beginning. The capital infusion will be used for a major product launch this spring. Investors included Roger Salquist and other angels.

Gold Standard will be participating in the SARTA’s Med Tech Showcase on March 30th at CSUS and has been able to raise its local profile with the assistance of SARTA’s MedStart, a sister program to our VentureStart.

Sacramento Web Startup Chrometa Figures Out Customer Support

VStart — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 02:27:05 +0000

Brett Owens of Chrometa was one of the first entrepreneurs mentored by VentureStart. We recommended “go get customers” rather than trying to raise money from organized investors. He did that and has been growing ever since with an ever-increasing customer base.

Chrometa maintains an excellent blog and today we saw an interesting post on customer support for software companies and its challenges. Take a look and I think you’ll find that Chrometa have met the challenge well with some good thinking. The very fact their blog talks about this is also great marketing. Go Chrometa!

Med Tech Entrepreneurs — Don’t Miss This Sacramento Region Event

VStart — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:25:59 +0000

Don’t miss the first annual Sacramento Med Tech Showcase on March 30, 2010 at Sacramento State University. The theme for the 2010 showcase is “Transforming Medicine Through Technology.” Hosted by SARTA’s MedStart Initiative , the event will raise awareness of the medical technology industry and resources in the Sacramento Region and generate excitement about technology developments by companies founded and funded in the region.

The Showcase will feature:

Exhibit Hall Showcasing Med Tech Companies in the Sacramento Region
The Next Wave Med Tech Innovators Challenge, co-hosted by VentureStart
“Telemedicine- New and Exciting Frontiers in Healthcare Delivery” panel discussion
“Emerging Trends In Med Tech Investing” panel discussion

Join with other leaders and innovators in the medical technology field. More than 350 attendees and over 50 exhibitors are expected!

SAVE THE DATE: March 30, 2010 from 1:00 pm – 7:30 pm. (exhibit hall from 5:00-7:30 pm)

LOCATION: Sacramento State University- University Union Grand Ballroom.

REGISTER NOW

ADMISSION: $80 general, $40 SARTA member

For information on sponsoring or exhibiting at the event, please contact Laura Good at lauragood@sarta.org or 916-261-1873.

Web Startups — Do You Have a Technical Co-Founder Who Can Code?

VStart — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 21:34:54 +0000

VentureStart gets many Sacramento region web startups applying for our mentoring. Very often we see great ideas and the need to raise money to hire people to code the idea/application. We normally encourage these startups to get a co-founder, or someone who will work for stock, on the team, and then get some traction before even considering raising money from Angel groups or VCs.

Adam Kalsey, the founder of SacStarts and a VentureStart mentor, recently gave advice on this to one VentureStart entrepreneur and then published it on his blog. We quote it here since it is so relevant to web startups.

“Got an idea for a technology product but don’t have the technical chops to build it yourself? You’ll need to find yourself a cofounder.

You’re building a technology company, but have no technology people on the founding team. This leaves you with three options. Hire, outsource, or find a technical co-founder.

It’s nearly impossible for a technology company to succeed by outsourcing their early product. Don’t even think of going that route. Freelancers or outside firms can’t possibly deliver what you want because they don’t actually care about the product or the outcome.

To hire someone full time, you’ll need to pay them a reasonable wage. For someone that’s capable of taking the business ideas you have and translating them to a real working product that won’t fall over as soon as people start using it, you’re looking at at least $80k/year in Sacramento. Don’t think you’ll go get funding and then hire someone. You’re going to need a product before you can get any funding. Gather together whatever funding you have now and hire a developer. It’s going to be important to hire the right person the first time, so if you don’t have anyone who has hired technical people for small teams before, I’d be happy to help you screen candidates.

Your third option is to gain a technical co-founder who’s willing to build this for a cut of the company. Expect to give them 25-30% of the company, but make sure you have a vesting arrangement so some crook doesn’t sign on, take 30% and quit the next day. I can help you screen these people and advise you on how you can structure things with them.

Here’s the thing… You can’t just go out and “find a co-founder” any more than you can go out and “find a wife.” Your co-founder relationship is just that, a relationship. You’ll have a significant relationship with this person, and they with you. Likewise, they’ll have a serious relationship with the business. You need someone to fall in love with you and your idea and to love it enough they’re willing to take tremendous risks in order to be involved. People grow into relationships, they aren’t recruited into them.

So how do you find your co-founder? Same way you found your wife. You meet lots of people. Put yourself out there. Make sure people know you’re available. Date.

Talk about your ideas with everyone you meet. Most people won’t want to hear about it. But some will have feedback. This feedback will shape your ideas and change your business. Along the way, you’ll meet someone with a technical mind that gets just as excited about your idea as you do. You’ll find that the two of you can’t seem to spend enough time talking about the idea and the business. You’ll know that this person is the one.”

Sacramento Region Startup ioSafe At CES — Fire, Water, and Crushing Fail to Stop Their SSD Drive

VStart — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 06:24:49 +0000

Robb Moore, CEO of ioSafe in Auburn, always does something sensational at CES in Las Vegas. This year, as he did last year, he subjected one of the company’s hard drives to fire, and water submersion, but this time he further ran over it with the tracks on a 20 ton backhoe. Take a look at the video to see if the drive survived. By the way. Robb has bootstrapped ioSafe from day one. Seems this video goes a long way to say a lot a pitch or executive summary would never reveal! Robb is a VentureStart adviser.

Sacramento Startup BoardEvals Signs First Customers for Board Evaluations

VStart — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:23:26 +0000

How can attending a high end workshop on a staid subject like Corporate Governance lead to an exciting web startup in Sacramento?

Ask Jim Schraith, a noted local angel investor and venture partner with DFJ Frontier! Jim was attending such a workshop last year and thought there had to be a better way of doing board self evaluations. So he founded and bootstrapped BoardEvals.com together with Layton Wedgeworth and Bob Bennett, in the summer of 2008. The product launched earlier this year and they are now seeing an accelerated pace of client sign ups in the corporate and non-profit world.

What do they do? They provide a set of web-based tools that help organizations perform more efficient, effective and thorough board evaluations. BoardEvals replaces the ad-hoc, manual processes used by most organizations today with a standardized, automated board evaluation process that saves time and expenses, while at the same time improving corporate governance practices.

Sacramento Startups — An interesting perspective

VStart — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 19:33:46 +0000

We just saw this post on Techcrunch about the CBS acquisition of MaxPreps a few years ago and thought it worth reposting here.

Shhhh…your not supposed to mention Sacramento. Don’t make us send our catering crew over there…..

1st rule of building a startup in Sacramento is your not supposed to mention Sacramento
2nd rule of building a startup in Sacramento, is your NOT supposed to mention Sacramento.
3rd rule of bootstrapping in Sacramento, is that if we are mentioned frequently on TC or elsewhere our talent and engineers get recruited to SV/SF, only to return when the bubble goes limp, taps out or bursts.
4th rule of bootstrapping in Sacramento is try and talk to local Angels and VC’s before you have to drive to Menlo Park
5th rule of building a startup in Sacramento is it costs even less here.
6th Rule of building a startup in Sacramento is build something with a product and value, you cant sell a burn rate man.
7th Rule of Sacramento start ups is you can bootstrap as long as you have to.
8th Rule of Sacramento startups is, if this is your first start up here, you will probably be doing another…

Grats to the MaxPreps team, they’ve been at it awhile. Always good to see other local teams making good.

PS: There is no Sacramento Startup Club, and if there were we deny its existence.

Sacramento Startups — Join Investors and Successful Entrepreneurs

VStart — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 03:48:52 +0000

Coming soon, an organization dedicated to the goal of nurturing entrepreneurism in the greater Sacramento region. No dues, no fees, no sales pitches. Just real help and motivation for people who think they might want to start a company here in the region. This group is being formed by investors and entrepreneurs who want to help others start and grow successful businesses here, without having to move their company or raise their money in the Bay area. Click here to get more information when it’s launched.