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Firms compete for capital in capital city
SmartStart Venture Forum Oct. 1-2 in Albany
By Casey J. Dickinson, CNY
Business Journal Staff, September 26, 2003
Syracuse, N.Y. September 26, 2003 – Five
Central New York companies will take the stage in Albany Oct. 1-2 to compete
in the third annual SmartStart Venture Forum. The companies
include Critical Technologies, DEALTEK, Healthcare One, NovaSterilis,
and Viral Therapeutics. Each company will have eight minutes to pitch its
business
to an audience of 100 investors. Last year’s event attracted more than 350
participants. More than one-third of the event’s
past presenters has secured funding, according to Robert Buckley,
coordinator of the Empire State Venture Group, Inc. The SmartStart
Venture Forum features
28 companies from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts,
Maryland, and Pennsylvania.
A mentoring group is helping the Central
New York companies to polish their presentation skills and business
plans prior to the forum.
Members of the group include Robert Trachtenberg, president of
the TDO; Roger Trabucco,
commercial applications manager at Syracuse University’s CASE Center; Mikio
Miyawaki, an attorney with Bond, Schoeneck and King; Peggy Adams
of the Greater Syracuse Business Development Corp.; and Dirk Sonnneborn,
managing
partner of Exponential –Newtek.
“New entrepreneurs tend to want to talk
about their product rather than the potential market or competition,” says
Trachtenberg. The mentor group has held coaching sessions designed to
focus the participants on appealing to venture capitalists. Trachtenberg
served as a judge in the preliminary round of the competition. He doesn’t
mix his judging and coaching duties. The TDO has participated in the SmartStart
Venture forum since the event began, and the TDO has coached companies
for other competitions over the past decade, says Trachtenberg.
Michael
Schattner, president Onondaga Venture Capital Fund, also helped
prepare local finalists for their time on stage. The coaching sessions
involved presentations
followed by a panel critique. The coaches addressed everything from speaking
styles to the proper use of PowerPoint, he says. Even if the initial
presentation doesn’t result in immediate funding, says Schattner, the
experience can help future efforts.
“The forum gives them visibility to investors,” he
adds.
DEALTEK founder Rhett Weiss will be presenting
his company’s online,
economic-development software. He says he’s grateful for all
the support his company’s
received in preparation for SmartStart.
“These are all busy people that have
other things they can be doing with their time,” says
Weiss.
Skaneateles–based DEALTEK has developed
a Web-based software tool, known as DEALS that helps corporate
site selectors and economic-development
agencies compare
sites for development, expansion, and location. The program uses
a number of relevant data points, such as tax rates, employment
levels, energy costs, and
salaries to model development scenarios.
Weiss relocated DEALTEK
from Virginia to be closer to the software expertise at Purplewire,
LLC. A staff of 12 engineers created
the DEALS program
incorporating Weiss’ dealmaking criteria. Purplewire’s Jay
Mortensen, chief technology officer and Dr. Chung-Chi Cha,
president of
the software developer, have spent many hours
helping Weiss improve his eight-minute presentation.
“The principals at Purplewire have been
extremely helpful,” says Weiss.
The advice coaches offer is sometimes
contradictory, Weiss explains, reflecting the different visions of each
coach.
“Different businesspeople have different
visions of how to tell the story,” he adds. “It’s all an exercise to sharpen
your message.”
Ithaca–based NovaSterilis is seeking $2 million to expand its business,
says David Burns, president of NovaSterilis. The company uses a
patented process to sterilize medical products using carbon dioxide.
Developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, NovaSterilis’ technology
can be used to sterilize plastics and human skin. The
three-employee company is hoping to market its product to tissue
banks and medical offices.
Other sterilization methods, Burns explains,
use high
heat or toxic materials. NovaSterilis’ method will
allow medical facilities to cut the risk of infection
while
reducing the use of dangerous processes.
Held at Albany’s
Desmond Hotel and Conference Center, the two-day
SmartStart Venture Forum features funding presentations as well
as an ongoing trade show
of participating companies.
Contact Dickinson at cdickinson@cnybj.com
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