Businesswomen vie
for investors' eyes
by SALLY DUROS
(Feb. 2, 2001) Susan Bergman, founder of an online marketplace for authors
and readers, showed up at the Springboard 2001 launch wearing a short, quilted
jacket in an eye-smashing shade of hunter's orange. Bergman wears the jacket
when she is meeting with potential investors and other business partners whom
she hasn't met before. It's hard to miss, she says.
The highly visible jacket was reminiscent of the wacky ties and vests that decorate
successful traders (with questionable taste) at the Chicago Board of Trade.
It's also an apt symbol for the panache shown by Chicago's women entrepreneurs
as they vie to present at Chicago's spring venture capital forum -- Springboard
2001: Midwest.
Springboard, a competition that will pit 25 local women entrepreneurs before
an audience of venture capitalists, closes to applications Friday, Feb. 16 at
5 p.m. To the women selected to present their business plans, Springboard offers
six weeks of two-on-one coaching, and a May finale that consists of a chance
to make their pitches before an audience of venture capitalists with real money
to invest. Bergman is a writer turned entrepreneur. With a PhD in English Literature
from Northwestern University, she knows the needs of publishers and the needs
of writers, and her company, PreviewPort, brings them together in an online
community with readers, offering writers' forums, events, profiles and electronic
publishing.
Feedback from one of PreviewPort's early-stage angel investors has fueld Bergman's
anticipation about the Midwest effort. "One our investors -- who invests
in about 20 companies -- invests in three women-owned businesses. The other
two women-owned companies presented at other Springboards, and they received
funding. So, he is excited about the possbility of PreviewPort participating,
because of the record of other companies he has supported.
Big names like Steve Martin, Maxine Chernoff, Maxine Hong Kingston, Sarah Paretsky
and Scott Turow all have author centers at PreviewPort that readers can visit.
In 2001, PreviewPort hopes to sign up 1,000 more authors, publish 100 eBooks,
and work with 50 publishers to build their online presence, benchmarks that
she is hoping to reach with support earned from Springboard. Annette Gilchrist,
president of Cue Biotech, is hoping that Springboard will allow Cue to set up
the infrastructure of a real business.
Headquartered in a lab at Northwestern University Medical School, Cue is researching
a new way of identifying families of neural receptors so medications, such as
those that treat allergies, can be more finely tuned and their side affects
minimized.
"The dollars we have received so far" Gilchrist says, "will bring us further
along proving the concept. Springboard money would allow us to hire more people
and do our work faster." She is hoping to raise $ 2 million through Springboard,
enough to hire a CEO and two more scientists.
Gilchrist, who has a PhD in Immunology, was an assistant research professor
at Northwestern for the Institute for Neuroscience prior to founding Cue with
full-time Northwestern professor Heidi Hamm in June 2000.
"I have to learn how to come across as a business person rather than as a scientist,"
Gilchrist says, and Springboard's tutoring program will help. A large, well-established
biotech company can be an $ 80 million a year business. Biotech companies, however,
are often a hard sell to venture capitalists, who are usually looking for a
return within two to three years. Biotech has a longer time frame, with chemical
trials alone taking 14 years.
It's hoped that once Cue is on the road to profitability, it will be a $ 5 million
to $ 10 million a year business.
Christine Mason, co-founder of MetalMaker, said she hopes that Springboard's
collegial business atmosphere will prevent her from slipping into foundry speak,
the language her business is so deeply immersed in. "It is very invigorating
to be around other people who are betting their livelihood on an idea,"Mason
says.
MetalMaker, founded in September 1999, offers foundries, mills and their suppliers
an online, one-stop solution for sourcing, executing, fulfilling, tracking and
evaluating their commercial transactions with trading partners worldwide.
Today, the firm employs 50 in offices in the Metra train station building. She
and the other co-founders, who are self-professed Chicago fanatics, felt Chicago
was the perfect City for a heavy industry business-to-business launch. Soon
after start-up, MetalMaker won its first major client, manufacturing giant Alcoa.
Mason went the start-up route after 10 years in consulting, trade strategy and
ebusiness for a big consumer products company left her feeling, well, sluggish.
Mason was looking to get more done in a shorter time frame
That might have something to do with Mason's ambition to some day be a venture
capitalist or an angel investor herself -- another ambition that Springboard
could make real for her.
Sally Duros is a Chicago-based business writer and consultant who can be reached
at Sally@sduros.com. GRAPHIC: Annette Gilchrist, president of Cue Biotech, hopes
to line up $ 2 million to hire a CEO and two scientists through venture capitalists
at Springboard 2001. Writer Susan Bergman's PreviewPort provides a place for
authors and publishers to build their online presence and get to know each other.
Copyright 2001 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.
December 27, 2000, WEDNESDAY, Late Sports Final Edition
SECTION: FINANCIAL; Pg. 60
LENGTH: 151 words
Hopping
aboard Springboard
By
Sally Duros
If
you're interested in bringing your business plan before a roomful of venture
capitalists looking for good ideas, here's how to apply to the Springboard Venture
Capital Forum.
The
Women's Business Development Center invites women entrepreneurs to file their
applications by Feb. 16 at 5 p.m.
Targeted
candidates
Women
who:
Hold the title of CEO, president, founder, CFO, COO, CTO.
Own a significant equity stake in her company.
Anticipate later institutional-round investments of at least $ 1 million.
Springboard
will give priority to businesses that are:
Headquartered in the Midwest.
Involved in technology and software, bio-technology, life sciences and telecommunications.
Relying on e-commerce and Internet.
How
to apply
Point your browser to www.WBDC.org, click on the Springboard 2001 logo and
follow the prompts.
You also can go directly to the Springboard site at www.Springboard 2000.org.
If
you are uncertain whether your business qualifies, contact the Women's Business
Development Center at (312) 853-3477, extension 18 or 22.
Copyright
2000 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.
Chicago
Sun-Times
February 02, 2001, FRIDAY, Late Sports Final Edition
SECTION: FINANCIAL; Pg. 46
LENGTH: 188 words