Oregonstartups.com Blog

On March 26, Marc Stanley, Director of the Technology Innovation Program (TIP — part of NIST) presented an overview of TIP at OMSI. 

TIP Purpose: assisting US business and institutions of higher education or other organizations, such as national labs and nonprofit research institutions, to support, promote, and accelerate innovation in the US through high-risk, high-reward research in areas of critical national need.

How they will do it: grants to companies, universities, etc.

The TIP organization will ask for proposals addressing one of the following 7.  (They will decide which one by June 2).

7 Topics to be considered for TIP:
Water
      Examples: New sensors, Analytical measurement tools,
      Water process integration; filtration process
      Will come up with specific sub topics through gap analysis

Civil infrastructure
    Examples: transportation infrastructure, Energy (power grid), Sustainability

Personalized medicine
    Examples: Biological systems; genomics; identifying bio-markers;
    Genetic profiles; protecting patient data
    Rapid analysis of the genome; real time detection of proteins;
    Drug/vaccine delivery systems medical devices

Analytical tools for complex networks (probably next year)
    Transportation, financial, defense — all run by networks

Energy
    Examples: Battery tech; Carbon dioxide generation problem;
    Fuel cels, PV,wind, etc.

Robust communication networks
    Reliable and secure systems.
    Diagnostics; interoperability

Manufacturing
    Examples: Emerging processes and technology
    Free form fabrication; layered manufacturing; rapid manufacturing;
    Enterprise level simulation; net centric manufacturing nano manufacturing

In a post to his BeyondVC blog, Ed Sim has some  advice for web startups looking to make money on ads.  For example:

…don’t ramp up your sales team too quickly until you have a product to sell.  That means if you don’t have scale or enough eyeballs you are better off using Google Adsense.

…many startups may not know what kind of ad units to sell but be careful of not having a standard product list or rate sheet when you go out to the market.  Yes, I know you have to be creative if you have a new service and listen to your customers, but at the same time don’t base your business on selling one-off ad units for each advertiser because this can be a huge drain on your technical resources over time

Fraud-protection company iovation announced a $15 million investment from SAP Ventures, European Founders, and Intel Capital

John Cook’s Venture Blog reported that:

Skillbit, the Seattle Internet
startup created in January by a group of more than 100 volunteer
developers, lawyers and business people as part of the Startup Weekend,
has closed down due to legal complications over the ownership structure.

I had wondered how the Startup Weekend process dealt with ownership issues — but apparently the SEC is the real problem. 

There’s a Startup Weekend project scheduled for Portland May 23-25. 

OTBC (note: it’s my day job) will be starting the 10 week FastTrac TechVenture entrepreneurship program (developed by the Kaufman Foundation) on April 15.  Three hours each Tuesday evening for 10 weeks (plus additional out-of-class work) to validate your market, develop a business plan and a funding plan — and get an OEN business plan review.

And Stoel Rives is sponsoring scholarships to bring down the cost, making it an excellent deal.

Find out more on this page of the OTBC website.  And please pass the word to any prospective entrepreneurs or early-stage entrepreneurs with a high-tech or biotech concept who could use some help developing a solid business plan!

The NASVF published a preview of a study that will analyze the impact of the Appalachian Regional Commission’s Entrepreneurship Initiative.  Some of their observations:

"Job
creation" is an overused metric. It paints an incomplete picture of the
outcomes of entrepreneurship development investments, and should be
replaced by a more encompassing "entrepreneurship development metrics
portfolio." While job creation should be reported as an outcome of
program investments, a much richer understanding of impacts can come
through efforts to define and capture outcomes as measured by a broad
set of performance metrics. In addition to jobs created/retained and
new business starts, this system should include other outcome measures
such as the following:

Changes in business profitability following a capital investment
Number of incubator tenants who graduate from a facility and stay in the region
Number of business owners still in business after receiving counseling or technical assistance
Changes in sales after receiving outside technical support
Changes in attitudes following completion of training programs.

The Kansas City Star reported that to better understand how new businesses evolve, the Kaufman Foundation started a study of startups in 2004.  That year, the  Foundation took a random sample of new businesses started in 2004 and that were included in the Dun & Bradstreet database.  They completed interviews with a total of 4,928 businesses.

Between June of 2006 and January 0f 2007, they completed the "First Follow-Up Survey".  (There will be more.)  Some of the findings so far:

•A little more than 2 percent said they owned patents during their
first year of operation, while nearly 9 percent had copyrights.
High-tech businesses had more patents and copyrights, while about the
same percentage (13.5 percent) had trademarks regardless of their tech
status.

•Nearly 60 percent of the businesses had no employees
their first year. About 25 percent had two or more employees, and less
than 4 percent had more than 10 employees.

•Thirty-seven percent
had no revenue in their first year of operation. But about 45 percent
had a profit and about 17 percent had profits in excess of $100,000.

•Nearly
44 percent of new businesses had no debt financing during their first
year, and many were started with very little debt financing. About 17
percent of the businesses started with $5,000 or less, and nearly 11
percent started with $100,000 or more.

•The vast majority of
equity invested came from the business owners. Just 10 percent of the
businesses used external equity, while spouses provided equity to 1.6
percent of the businesses. Nonfamily informal investors and venture
capitalists were used very infrequently.

•A little less than 9
percent of the firms closed in 2005. Women-owned businesses had a
survival rate of 89 percent, while men-owned businesses had a survival
rate of about 92 percent. About 88 percent of black-owned businesses
survived, compared with 91 percent of Asian-owned businesses and 92
percent of white-owned businesses.

You can download the full results form the Baselin and First Follow-Up Surveys at this link.

The Seattle Times reported that Accelerator has launched it’s 7th startup.

Local biotech incubator Accelerator is hatching its seventh firm —
Recodagen, which will research therapies to arrest the spread of
cancerous tumors.

The technology underpinning Recodagen was licensed out of the
laboratory of J. Suzanne Lindsey at Washington State University in
Pullman. Lindsey is moving to Seattle to act as head of research for
the new company, which initially will have two other employees.

From the Pudget Sound Business Journal:

Washington may not have the nation’s biggest biotech market, but
startups still attract millions in venture capital. Geography isn’t as
much of a hurdle as the general competition for money.

Last year, the state saw 11 rounds of funding for biopharmaceutical
companies totaling $253.4 million, according to MoneyTree Report data
compiled by Thomson Financial for PricewaterhouseCoopers and the
National Venture Capital Association.

Investors also funded nine deals for medical devices for a total of
$152.10 million, according to Dow Jones VentureSource. They included
several rounds of more than $30 million apiece.

The Portland Business Journal reported yesterday that local startup SplashCast has raised $4 million:

SplashCast, headed by CEO and founder Michael Berkley, had already
raised $1.3 million from Portland and Seattle angel investors. A little
more than half the company’s total funding has come from angel
investors.

New investor Mark Bayliss, an Australian advertising executive, led
the latest portion of the Series A round. Bayliss will join
SplashCast’s board of directors.

Charlie Baker, an ex-Nike Inc. executive who is on SplashCast’s
board, has also invested in the Series A round, both as an individual
and with his investment firm, Emergent.