The Starting Gate

Startups take the stage at statewide investor conference

With interest in early-stage investing heating up, more than 200 investors, entrepreneurs and service providers came together Wednesday for the Florida Venture Forum’s Early-Stage Conference in the Orlando area.

Eighteen startup companies presented at the conference at the Reunion Resort, including five with medical devices, biotech products and  health-tech applications, and four with solutions for the bar and restaurant industry. Presenting from South Florida:  Arctico, a company offering purified ice in patented single-serving, tamper proof containers; Bookigee, which creates a new breed of tools and analytics for the book publishing industry; LearnerNation!, a cloud-based learning platform in the hot education-tech space (pictured below); Maxx Technologies, which saves bars money in liquor “shrinkage”; and 71lbs.com, a "set-and-forget, then collect" system for small businesses to easily collect unclaimed shipping refunds. Also exhibiting at the conference: spendLO, a name-your-price platform for services. Most of the  companies were trying to raise funding of  $750,000 to $2 million, some more. 

Their goal: Turn the heads of a few investors and hopefully score a follow-up meeting or two.

The Florida Venture Forum, the state's oldest and largest statewide support group for venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, said it was a record attendance for the Early-Stage Conference, now in its sixth year. For many of the attendees --  VC members who don't typically invest in early-stage companies -- it was an opportunity to view what's in the pipeline and make connections.

For angel investor attendees, it was all that -- plus potential opportunities now.  

 “I was impressed with the presentations, and they seem to get stronger every year,” said Tim Cartwright, chairman of Tamiami Angel Fund I. In the last year, the fund has made six investments, generally $250K to $1 million, including  into 71lbs.com, he said. “More than likely we’ll invite one if not two of the companies to present to our fund.”

Cartwright  said he’s seeing a dramatic increase in the number of education-technology business plans, and there were some presenting Wednesday, including Miami's LearnerNation! In the next week, Tamiami Angel Fund will be closing on an investment in Via Response, an Orlando ed-tech company, he said. Tamiami Angels, with 40 members, provides deal flow analytical graphs on its website, www.tamiamiangels.com (under resources), which show a clear spike in the last year. The single most active area  is South Florida, he said, noting that nearly a third of the deals his group has looked at are from this region.

 “We’ve never seen the quality of deals we are seeing now, companies with revenue, teams that are almost complete -- it’s a great time to be an angel investor,” added Rhys Williams, president of New World Angels, a group of 38 members whose latest investment was Bioceptive. “We have two term sheets out right now and may issue a third shortly, and that hasn’t happened in a very long
time. That speaks to the quality of the deal flow we’re seeing and that our members are very engaged.”

To kick off the event, winning teams from eight universities faced off for the Florida Venture Forum's annual collegiate competition. That included Chill-N Ice Cream, a team from University of Miami’s Launch Pad program that has seen steady, steep revenue increases at its first  store in Pinecrest and is actively looking for sites for its second and third locations now. Winning the collegiate competition was a team from Florida Gulf Coast University for a company called AquaRamp.

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Meet Miami's newest investor groups

Miami Finance Forum panel: Matt Haggman, Melissa Krinzman, Ben Wirz, Peter Kellner, Marco Giberti, Adam Smith.

A year ago, when the Knight Foundation sponsored a Miami Finance Forum discussion about building a startup ecosystem, it was as a test case to gauge interest locally, said its Miami program director, Matt Haggman.

Now with a host of co-working spaces and accelerators for entrepreneurs, Endeavor for high-impact entrepreneurs and the eMerge conference on the way, and recent news such as Open English’s Series D raise of $65 million, what a difference a year makes.

As we know, Knight has been sponsoring and funding many of these initiatives, and on Tuesday the foundation was back sponsoring another Miami Finance Forum event about the startup community, this one focused on investor groups.

The panel for “The CEO Power Breakfast: Meet Miami’s Newest Investor Groups” included Melissa Krinzman, managing director of Venture Architects, Ben Wirz, director of business consulting, Knight Enterprise Fund, Adam Smith, partner of Medina Capital Group, Peter Kellner, co-founder of Endeavor, Marco Giberti, angel investor with Accelerated Growth Partners, and Haggman.

There’s been a shift in the conversation of late, much less talk about what Miami lacks and more about what we have. This event was no exception.

Here’s a bit on what we do have, according to the panelists:

The new Venture Architects Investor Network -– Krinzman’s venture --is a private network where investors will be matched with entrepreneurs who fit their investment profile. The deals that come through the network have been vetted; the network draws on Venture Architects' strong New York-Miami ties, "but we want to grow the Miami piece," Krinzman said. Just since launching in January, there are already 20 angel investors and five funds in the network, she said.

Accelerated Growth Partners, a relatively new local angel group, in less than a year has invested $2 million plus ($25K to $250K or sometimes more) in early-stage companies, some locally and many from Latin America, as well as other U.S. and European companies that are open to moving offices here.  “Our position is to find the best angel investors and find the best talent here or bring that talent here,” said Giberti.

Medina Capital, founded by Manny Medina, invests in later-stage early-stage companies in spaces like cyber security, big data, cloud and storage, Smith said. “We have made a couple of investments so far and we have a couple in our pipeline. What we try to do to fill this gap (between angels and large funds) for folks that need to go to the next level … That also led to eMerge Americas (the tech conference planned for next May). ...  We are a natural gateway to Latin America and we should use that to our advantage,” he said

Endeavor: The global nonprofit for high impact entrepreneurship, now in 15 countries,  chose Miami for its first U.S. office, which is under development. “We look for entrepreneurs across all industries that will have a very significant impact. … We are a signaling organization so when we get set up here, we believe entrepreneurs will start coming out of the woodwork,” said Kellner. (See "the Endeavor Effect: on Endeavor.org here.)

Knight Enterprise Fund: Launched a year ago, the $10 million fund has made 12 or 13 seed and Series A investments to date, said Wirz. “We are looking at companies that reduce the distance between people and information.” He said Knight Enterprise Fund has invested in one local company,  Gui.de, Freddie Laker's venture that turns blogs and online news into TV, making information more fun and interesting to consume,  and he said the fund is  looking at a second company.

Opportunities for growth come with exposure. “One of the challenges is communicating the experience of the money here. We have a lot of talent here and we are going to have to shout about what that talent brings beyond the dollars,” said Krinzman. On all the family offices here, Giberti said family offices often don’t have experience in investing in tech “but when they try it, they do like it. I think family offices can play a vital role in this early-stage community… it will be interesting to syndicate more and better capital for startups.” Kellner added:  “I see a flow that is not one way, I see an opportunity to bring companies from Europe and elsewhere to Miami. I have two companies interested, one in Swtizerland and one in the Netherlands, and I also think there is an opportunity to bring some of Silicon Valley’s brightest here.”

Audience members, largely executives and professionals, lawyers and others, also included some startups.  “The panel was world-class and the discussion helped us all get a better grasp on the increasing availability of venture capital in the South Florida region," said Nestor Villalobos, founder of Arctico and a Miami Herald Business Plan Challenge finalist this week (at left). He believes South Florida is quickly emerging as "the place to be for startups across the country looking to start or grow their businesses.”

Glen Surnamer, COO of Bookigee, (pictured at right) said he too thought the area is hitting an inflexion point. “I think the Miami early stage scene is becoming more comfortable being Miami, rather than trying to be the Bay, NY, Boston, Austin, etc.  This is important because each of those scenes emerged organically out of very specific sociological, demographic and economic circumstances,” Surnamer said. “The point here is that Miami entrepreneur culture has to organically germinate out of the seeds that underpin us. This is clearly starting to happen.”

 

ContactUs.com completes seed round

ContactUs.com announced today the completion of $400,000 in seed  financing, led by the Miami-based PeopleFund.

ContactUs.com, headquartered in Miami, operates a suite of online marketing tools called ContactUs for small businesses to create easy-to-configure contact forms and lead management solutions. The company is using the funding to build out the capabilities, features and UI of ContactUs, as well as to begin sales and marketing.

Founded in November 2012, ContactUs.com was funded initially by co-founders Brad Seiler and Howard Yeh.  Seiler is the founder of boberdoo, an automation and distribution software company serving online lead generators.  Yeh was previously co-founder and COO of BrokersWeb,  a performance marketing company that was twice named to the Inc 500 list of fastest-growing companies before its sale in 2011. “The capabilities of the founders, along with ContactUs.com’s business model, convinced us of a big opportunity,” said Matias de Tezanos, founder of PeopleFund.

The company offers a free version of ContactUs for website, mobile and Facebook.  It also has a WordPress contact form plugin  as well as premium packages enabling businesses to generate phone leads, accept appointment requests, receive SMS notifications and qualify leads. “Our goal is to turn website “Contact Us” forms into better outlets for generating new customers,” said Seiler.

Open English raises Series D round of $65 million

Open English, the rapidly growing online English language school, has raised an additional $65 million in venture capital to fund its expansion within Latin America — and outside the region.

The Series D round, valuing the company at $350 million, brings the total funding raised to $120 million. "There are very few companies that have had that level of funding in ed-tech and certainly for companies in Latin America," said Andres Moreno, CEO and co-founder of the Miami-based company with offices or call centers in Panama, Caracas, Bogota and Sao Paulo. The round was led by Technology Crossover Ventures, whose investments include Facebook, Expedia, Netflix, HomeAway and others, including education technology companies.  C-Round investors Redpoint Ventures and Insight Venture Partners also participated in this round, Moreno said on Monday.

Open English, which offers live, online classes by native English speakers in 22 countries across Latin America, has grown from 5,000 students in 2010 to more 70,000 current students today. With about a year of launching in Brazil -- it’s first non-Spanish market -- the company recently enrolled its 10,000th student there. Open English employs more than 2,000 full-time, part-time and contract workers.

"We’re just really scratching the surface here. We think there is meaningful opportunity to continue to capture market share as people realize this is a better and more cost effective solution than traditional brick and mortar schools," said Moreno, who started the company in Venezuela with his partners with just $700 in 2006.

Moreno explained the $65 million round will fund expansion within Latin America, significant investments in its products, including its back-end and consumer learning platforms, and, for the first time, expansion beyond the core region.

"We will be launching in three new territories outside of Latin America in 2013," Moreno said, adding that announcements will be coming out in the next few months.

“I can’t tell you how excited we are to grow this,” said Moreno. “This is good news for the Latin American entrepreneurial ecosystem ... and it is a good thing for Miami.”

Boris Hirmas Said, entrepreneur in residence at Florida International University and chairman of Tres Mares Group who was attending the Rokk Miami event on Monday, added: "Andres Moreno and Open English are the role models Miami empowers everyday to inspire our new generation of entrepreneurs, as top valuations and serious money are a reality in our neck of the woods."

 To read the recent Miami Herald profile of Open English, go here.

 

Florida Venture Forum selects early-stage presenting companies

The Florida Venture Forum (http://www.floridaventureforum.org) has selected 18 Florida-based companies to present at its Early Stage Capital Conference, to be held at the Reunion Resort in Orlando on May 15, 2013. Five of the companies are from the tri-county area. The Conference is open to the public and registration is available on the Forum’s website.

Eighteen of Florida’s best early-stage prospects for equity financing will make 8 minute presentations to an audience of venture capitalists, private equity investors, angel investors, investment bankers, financial intermediaries and entrepreneurs.  Presenting companies are listed below by region:

Central/East Central Florida

AZZLY® (www.Azzly.com) Vero Beach, is a “Platform as a Service”, an end to end medical office system that benefits physicians, non-physician providers, payers, research organizations and patients. For the 500,000+ office based providers in the US-AZZLY delivers a real-time conversion from a patient encounter (visit) to a claim, improving profits, cash flow and revenues.

Cantoche (www.livingactor.com; www.cantoche.com),Orlando, is an international company based in Orlando, FL and Paris, France, that develops and distributes Living Actor™, an avatar Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform. Living Actor™ is a powerful CRM marketing and training tool that allows companies to intuitively create and publish personalized intelligent 3D virtual assistants to provide Web self-service to online, mobile, and tablet users. Living Actor™ technology automatically indexes and converts content to natural conversational speech and real-time social behaviors.

Frontline Technology Solutions (www.FrontlineTS.com) Winter Park, developed a tablet replacement to the standard GPS unit rented out at rental car desks.  They currently are working with Virgin Holidays, Dollar Thrifty, 4 hotels and a few other companies. The Navi-Tablet is a custom software suite they put download on top of a mobile device's OS that changes the way the mobile device operates.  Currently, they have a strategic partnership with Samsung and T-Mobile.

Partender (www.partender.com) Gainesville, is a mobile, B2B software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution that reduces the time it takes managers and owners to do bar inventory from a frustrating 5-6 hours to 15 minutes or less. We do this by digitizing the crazy, archaic paper-pen-clipboard process into a few taps and swipes on iOS and Android.

TruMobility, Inc (www.trumobility.com ) Vero Beach, offers Private Cellular Network solutions, which enable businesses to integrate cellular phones with their corporate phone systems.  TruMobility is the only B2B cellular carrier in the U.S. that has combined a Hosted PBX solution with a Private Cellular Network together with nationwide cellular voice, text and data.  The result is a converged business communications solution that substantially lowers communication costs, increases mobile productivity and eliminates coverage gaps in the office. 

TrueMotion Spine (www.truemotionspine.com ) Gainesville, is a medical device company focused on commercializing patented cervical and lumbar disc replacement devices to preserve and restore motion to the human spine, while alleviating chronic neck and back pain caused by degenerative disc disease. Since the early1900s, arthrodesis or “spinal fusion” has been the leading surgical treatment for degenerative disc disease.

Southeast Florida

Arctico Holdings, LLC (www.arctico.com ) Miami, seeks to pioneer the untapped market of purified ice in single-serving, tamper-proof packaging. The company will locally source and purify water, subsequently storing it in sealed vessels. When frozen, the ice may be removed from the packaging without risking contamination. This would allow consumers to cool their drinks using expertly engineered, slow-melting ice in places where they may not trust local sources.

Bookigee, Inc. (www.bookigee.com ; www.writercube.com) Miami, seeks to create a new breed of analytics for the $28B book publishing industry. Female-founded by a team of experienced publishing veterans, they combine data with our deep domain expertise to make smart, actionable tools that help control risk & drive profitability as publishing retools into a flatter information-driven business. Their industry relationships and reputation for innovation give them tremendous credibility and partnering opportunities that few other publishing-related startups can duplicate. They look for underperforming streams of data--both public and private--that can become high-value with the addition of their unique domain expertise. The goal is to move information in new patterns to unlock powerful business opportunities for key stakeholders such as publishers, authors, retailers, and consumers.

LearnerNation! (www.learnernation.com ) Miami, is a cloud-based SAAS learning platform featuring patent-pending technology that enables anyone anywhere to instantly deploy learning, training, and performance management initiatives. The LearnerNation™ platform is different from other e-learning solutions because it has a number of powerful, built-in teaching and learning tools that provide users the capacity to publish and consume media-rich content in a highly gamified and socialized user environment. Currently servicing companies like LG, Cartier and RIOT Games, Learnernation™ has demonstrated its product’s versatility and acceptance in a myriad of industrial sectors: they service clients ranging from international professional certification organizations (over 1600 different State / Local / Private Organizations + 23 US State Child Welfare Offices), to fitness franchises, EHR & Medical companies, restaurant franchises, professional continuing education organizations, large educational publishers, language schools, luxury retailers, and even New York Times Best- Selling Authors.

Maxx Technologies, Inc.(www.MyBarMaxx.com ) Ft. Lauderdale, provides bar owners the world’s most comprehensive liquor inventory management system. This technology was designed by Maxx Tech in response to a well demonstrated market need in the hospitality sector, which suffers from over $50 Billion in shrinkage each year. Using state of the art RFID technology, extremely accurate scales and video monitoring, the system and its robust software helps bar owners increase beverage profits substantially by recapturing lost revenues and decreasing costs. Users of the system are able to remotely monitor and control operations, generate reports and help eliminate shrinkage.  Furthermore users can easily calculate and re-order inventories on a real time basis through the web-based User Interface.  The User Interface’s reports are accessible from any internet enabled device; anywhere, anytime.  

Melanovus Oncology (www.melanovus.com) Jensen Beach, is a late pre-clinical stage biotechnology company that is developing innovative new therapies and diagnostics for late stage melanoma, which remains an unmet medical need representing a $3B US market.  The company's portfolio includes compounds with demonstrated pre-clinical activity in various stages of melanoma. The core technology comes from the labs of the Director of the Penn State Melanoma Research Center, with exclusive global license to the company from the Penn State Research Foundation. 

71 Pounds, Inc. (www.71lbs.com ) Ft. Lauderdale, offers a "set-and-forget, then collect" system that allows small and medium businesses (SMBs_ to easily collect the $2 Billion of unclaimed FedEx & UPS shipping refunds left on the table each year. They automatically recover their clients an average of 4-6% of their parcel spend on a no risk, contingent fee basis. They are adding 100+ customers each month and provide tens of thousands of dollars in monthly refunds to their customers.

Southwest Florida

GSL Solutions Inc. (www.gslsolutions.com) Tampa, specializes in helping government organizations manage relationships with key stakeholder groups through design and technologies. GSL Solutions has developed a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform that publishes content across web, mobile, e-mail and social media channels. Additionally, the system was built to process financial payments and other communication transactions.

Innovatia Medical Systems LLC (IMS)  St. Petersburg, designs high performance wirelessly networked in vivo medical devices to advance minimally invasive surgery (MIS).  MIS is the preferred approach in 39 procedures, 4 of which account for 2.4M abdominal surgeries per year in the U.S. (1.3M of those are MIS). MIS is accomplished with one or several small incisions, has a lower probability of complications vs. open surgery, results in less pain and trauma and a shorter recovery time. MIS under local vs. general anesthesia, results in cost savings in drugs and a lower probability of complications.

Interactive Lifestyle Management LLC (www.interactivelifestylemanagement.com), Osprey, has designed a proprietary, web-based behavior change program in conjunction with its corporate partner, Morneau Shepell (MS), to improve the overall health of employee users and reduce employer health care and absenteeism costs. The online platform uses advanced software technologies to deliver behavior change programs to large audiences at low cost.  ILM programs are sold by Healthcare Benefit Administrators (HBAs) such as MS to their corporate clients.

KiteDesk (www.kitedesk.com), Tampa, helps companies leverage their employees’ extended social networks to drive more sales and to make better hires. Our solution integrates public, private, and third party data to provide highly accurate details regarding customer or employee candidates including opportunities for warm introductions, company and contact social information, and a unique stream view that includes all public posts and communication histories. KiteDesk’s free Personal Cloud client, a component of KiteDesk enterprise, was launched in February of 2013.

Uptown Network (www.uptownnetwork.com), Naples, Macroeconomic factors have the hospitality industry squeezed for profits.  Daily deals and digital coupons exacerbate the situation further.  Menu technology has scantly changed in 50 years.  Uptown Network has invented the solution; SMART Menu Services for the Dining Lifestyle. (SMART stands for Social, Mobile, Aware and Real-Time).  They have proprietary technology that creates a network of menus and brands, creating a network effect in hospitality.  In addition to the technology, they have a pristine, curated database of food and wine.  

North Florida

Mystical Basket, LLC (www.mysticalbasket.com), Jacksonville, is a social e-commerce company focused on the development of the MystiKit platform that empowers the creation, promotion, discovery and purchase of materials and tools for DIY projects using a unique patent-pending technology.  MystiKit Platform is a Do-it-Yourself (DIY) Projects eco-System – that solves both the problems Consumers face in acquiring the right materials and tools needed to do a project and the problems that prevent DIY Project Creators from capitalizing on their ideas.

 

A Swarm of activity at Venture Hive, other news of note

Alejandro Muther, left, Fiorella Niro, second from left, both of Argentina and with the company Kimetric, Francisco Quintero, right, and Juan Bermudez, with the Miami-based company NightPro, at the Venture Hive. Pictured below, Alejandro Muther presents at The Swarm.

Juan Bermudez passionately presented  NightPro to investors, telling them about a whirlwind of recent accomplishments for the young Miami company that offers a cloud-based event and management platform for the nightlife industry. NightPro has been working with two of the region’s largest promoters — MMG and The Opium Group — that between the two of them represent a who’s who of nightclubs in South Florida.

Bermudez and his co-founder Francisco Quintero are part of the first accelerator class at the new  Venture Hive, and capped off an intense three months last week with The Swarm, the accelerator’s demo day-style event. NightPro was just one of the 14 startups — including six international companies — that presented on Friday afternoon to more than 100 investors and others.

During the past three months, NightPro (Nightpro.co) rebuilt its iPhone and iPad apps from scratch — that will be launching in the next few weeks — and developed a premium version of NightPro that can be customized. It also integrated online ticketing into its platform.      

With the help of his mentor, serial entrepreneur Jesus Rodriguez (pictured here), the NightPro team came away with a better approach for sales and beginning this week will now be going full-throttle on pushing its solution well beyond the local market, said Bermudez. “We have been working with larger companies that want to expand with us in the U.S. and beyond,” including Canada and Europe. In his pitch to investors, he said he needs $400,000 in seed funding to help make it all happen.

Other Venture Hive startups also made their presentations, and then met with investors and showed off their products in private offices set up for them at the Hive. Hair Construction and international companies Tabber and Kimetric all presented global expansion plans. Some announced news:  Do You Remember?, a nostalgia company, will be launching its site this week, said founder Michael Gitter.

Startups in the spotlight

This is a busy week ahead for other South Florida startups:

• Jared Kleinert, a 17-year-old entrepreneur from Boca Raton, is doing something this week he says has never been done before: Launching a company on its own crowd-funding site. Kleinert, a junior at Spanish River High School, will be launching Synergist (www.synergi.st) on Saturday with a social media splash — and hoping to raise $25,000 to fund his company. Synergist is a platform where social entrepreneurs can find other like-minded people, collaborate on projects together and crowdfund their projects. Kleinert plans to use the money to revamp the website and potentially bring on a new team member, Kleinert said. Learn more here:  http://synergist.eventbrite.com/

• Guide is a Miami-based startup led by Freddie Laker and Leslie Bradshaw with technology that will turn your online news into video newscasts, complete with an anchor of your choice. It is one of 16 chosen from around the world to present in the Startup Rally at The Next Web Conference Europe Thursday and Friday in Amsterdam.  Guide was one of only two startups chosen from the United States; the other one hails from San Francisco and the others are from Europe and Israel.

Coming up this week

Refresh Miami, the largest networking group in South Florida, keeps outgrowing its venues. This Thursday its monthly event — the topic is “Lean Startup” — will be held in two large rooms at the Miami Science Museum, with an expected attendance of up to 500. Refresh Miami has organized more than 76 events and has about 5,000 members.

The Startup Bus, which made its debut run at last month’s Refresh event and then followed with a Miami-to-Delray Beach run for a Startup Delray event, will be back to shuttle members from Palm Beach and Broward counties. More information on Refresh Miami’s event is here:  http://refreshmiami.com/event/refreshmiami-lean-startup/

Keep up with the news on The Starting Gate on MiamiHerald.com/business and follow me on Twitter @ndahlberg

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/04/21/v-fullstory/3357126/a-swarm-of-activity-at-venture.html#storylink=cpy

The state of venture capital -- Americas style

From left: Juan Pablo Cappello, Manny Medina, Boris Hirmas Said, Andres Moreno and Cate Ambrose discuss the state of venture capital in Latin America at The LAB Miami. Photo by Jose Pimienta.

 

Andres Moreno, founder and CEO of Open English, said it took him more than a year to raise his first $400,000. “Every morning I’d get off my friend’s couch in Menlo Park, put on the same suit jacket and go ask for money,” explaining that he was meeting with Silicon Valley angels and sometimes raising $25,000 at a time. “I was getting really good at it.”

Fast-forward to today, and Open English -- the fast-growing Miami company that offers live online English courses to more than 50,000 students all over Latin America -- has landed major venture backing. The company has already raised more than $55 million and is in the process of raising another significant round. That will fund the expansion of Open English beyond the region.

Moreno, who started his company in 2006, was part of a panel that explored venture capital and entrepreneurship in Latin America. The panel, hosted by AS/COA and the Latin American Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (LAVCA) and held last week at The LAB Miami, also included Cate Ambrose, president of LAVCA, Juan Pablo Cappello, co-founder and board member of Idea.me, Boris Hirmas Said, chairman of Tres Mares Group, chairman of Yellow Pepper and Entrepreneur in Residence at FIU, and Manny Medina, managing partner of Medina Capital Group and chairman of the Technology Foundation of the Americas.

Panelists described the venture landscape in Latin America as way ahead of where it was just five years ago, but still with a ways to go. Some U.S. venture firms have entered the market recently and “we are seeing more Latin venture firms co-investing with U.S. firms, learning how venture capital
is done,” Ambrose said. According to LAVCA research, Colombia and Mexico’s entrepreneurial ecosystems have made great strides in the past year, outpacing Brazil by some measures. Similar to what we hear locally, the panelists said the region could use some more big exits, or success stories, to attract more venture attention.

 

New World Angels leads $1.1 million investment in Bioceptive

New World Angels, together with venture capital firm First Light Ventures and the Special Equities program of Calvert Equity Portfolio, has closed a $1.1 million investment in Bioceptive, a medical device company focusing on women’s health.

Bioceptive's CEO and president is Dr. Stewart Davis of Delray Beach, a noted medical device entrepreneur  who has run several South Florida companies in the industry. Bioceptive’s scientific operations are based in New Orleans.

Bioceptive, founded in 2010, has developed a novel IUD (intrauterine device) inserter expected to significantly enhance the ease, safety and effectiveness of approximately 70 million insertion procedures done globally each year. Not only will this have an impact in major urban areas, but also in rural and poor areas of the world where physician access is limited and long-acting contraception is in high demand. “Under the capable leadership of Dr. Stewart Davis, we believe in the company’s ability to make a real difference in this market, “ said Rhys L. Williams, president of NWA.

Dr. Orin Levy, a member of New World Angels for nearly three years, first brought the investment to the attention of the group. Levy said Bioceptive has a strong management team and already has a functioning prototype ready for scale-up, and NWA was also attracted to the solution it provides. “Bioceptive’s inserter device will provide much-needed support for what ACOG (American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists) has recently recommended as a ‘first-line’ birth control option for young women,” said Levy, who has joined Bioceptive’s board.  “Ultimately, the hope is this will provide an opportunity for better reproductive health throughout the world.”

New World Angels, founded in 2003 and with chapters in Boca Raton and the Tampa Bay area, is a group of private investors focused on early-stage companies. It is typically a lead or co-investor in  transactions from  $500,000 to $3 million.

Small business loans up in 4Q -- 1st gain since 2010

By The Associated Press

Small business lending is showing small signs of growth, according to data compiled by the government.

The total amount of small business loans outstanding at the end of the fourth quarter came to $586 billion, up from $584 billion in the third quarter, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. That was the first quarterly gain in small business lending since the FDIC began tracking loans on a quarterly basis at the start of 2010. The FDIC is a government agency that insures bank deposits and oversees financial companies.

Despite the year-end improvement, the lending environment for small business remains weak. The December number was down from $598 billion in the final quarter of 2011 and $626 billion at the end of 2010.

The FDIC numbers included commercial and industrial loans, along with commercial real estate loans under $1 million.

Surveys have shown that small business owners remain cautious about borrowing. Low demand has been one of the factors behind weak lending since the recession ended.

On Tuesday a survey released by Thomson Reuters and PayNet showed that small businesses grew more reluctant to take out loans to buy equipment or expand in February as federal budget cuts approached. That continued a weak trend in lending that the two companies saw throughout 2012 and into the new year. PayNet provides credit ratings on small businesses.

The Thomson Reuters/PayNet Small Business Lending Index fell to 101.3 from 111.7 in January. The January reading was revised downward from a previously reported 113.1. In December the index stood at 115.

Small businesses have been reluctant to borrow since the recession because they've wanted to lower their debt burden, and because they've been uncertain about the economy and gridlock in Washington that has led to $85 billion in budget cuts. They're also uneasy about borrowing while they wait to see how much health insurance will cost them next year, when the government's health care overhaul is fully implemented.

The Thomson Reuters/PayNet study was compiled from data on commercial loans and leases in PayNet's database.

16 teams advance to finals in FAU Business Plan Competition

Florida Atlantic University’s 2013 Business Plan Competition’s final round will take place April 10 through April 12 at the College of Business.  More than 225 teams registered for the competition, with 16 teams advancing to the final round events. The participants will compete for a share of more than $215,000 in cash and prizes, FAU said.

The final eight teams competing in the FAU Student Track are:

Reverb Music Supply: Joshua Young, Kevin Wright. An online retailer of pre-owned high quality musical instruments and related accessories.

 Shop-on-the-Go.com: Pankaj Devgun. Takes the concept of online shopping to a new level by empowering the shopper to set a ‘Limit Order’ on a product and let the website do all the work of searching and purchasing it for them.

 Stadson Technology: Mathew Hudson, Andrew Stadtlander, Haley Grosky, James Gan, Ashley Elder. A software solutions company, HelpN is an emergency application that bridges the gap between the user and the emergency service they need.

Beauty and the Bump: Steven Bonzu, Stephanie Cooper, Stefanie Fox, Jason Reece. Rents maternity wear to the fashionable, career-driven pregnant woman.

The Ultimate Towel: Kevin Medina, Lori Ladisa. The Ultimate Towel solution has features such
as a zippered compartment, weights, and an inflatable pillow.

Forevermore: Mike Zito.  A legacy management software solution providing a secured website portal as a “living” memorial.

 Mobil Monitor: Todd Edge, Robin Catalano. A website and mobile app solution designed for users and medical professionals to document and track medical test results.

Ocean Motion Energy: Kisa Louck, Emy Louck. Developed a patent pending technology, SeaBreeze™,
which is capable of generating energy from the ocean’s currents and offshore wind.

The final eight teams competing in the Entrepreneur Track are:

Frozen Guru LLC: Zach Halpern, Jeremy Cohen, Jayme Kerrigan. A frozen food manufacturer focused on providing a healthy alternative.

Champions Youth Fitness: Paul Bosley, Saeb Jannoun, Keith R. Albright, Scott Steers, Richard Bambino.  A solution to the youth obesity crisis.

 REHYDRADE LLC: Zachary Gottfried, Scott Covitz. A sports drink that tastes great without the unnecessary sugar, calories, fat or caffeine contained in other sports drinks.

 Arctico Holdings: Nestor Villalobos, Peter Swanson. Pioneering the untapped market of purified ice in single-serving, tamper-proof packaging.

LYVLY:  Michael Hancock, Flavio Sonis. A social media application revolutionizing video usage.

TeemPlay: Becket Linn, Willis Kennedy, Steven Wright & Vincent Tam. Provides players with an online forum to create and share their 3D works.

AspirEDU Inc.: Kimberley Munzo, Don VanDemark, Kevin Kopas, Christopher Munzo. Provides a dashboard to allow school administrators to identify students most at risk for dropping out of online classes with the goal to improve retention rates.

Cuddlecloth/Palm Beach Pampered LLC: Mary Purcaro. Developed, patented, manufactured and markets Cuddlecloth®, Cuddlepet® and soon Cuddletote™  for improving bath safety for infants,
children & pets.

The top three finalists of each track will win cash and prizes to successfully launch their idea.

Festivities commence with the Greater Boca Raton Chamber of Commerce’s Young Entrepreneurs Academy Investor Panel on April 10. The panel features youth entrants in grades seven to 12 who will pitch to investors for seed funding. An elevator pitch event is scheduled for April 11, where guests have the opportunity to cast their vote for the People’s Choice winner, sponsored by Office Depot.  Business plan presentations from the FAU student and entrepreneur tracks are scheduled for April 12. Competition finalists will present to final round judges, comprised of venture capital principals, angel investors, serial entrepreneurs and business leaders. The three-day event culminates with keynote speaker Bernie Marcus, chairman of the Marcus Foundation and co-founder of The Home Depot.