Seek Venture Capital When the Market is Hot

Tom Stephenson

Tom Stephenson, Managing General Partner, Verge Fund

Raising equity capital for a business venture never happens in a vacuum. External forces inevitably affect when and how and where investors are found, just as they affect decisions about how much money is needed to support the company for a few years until it starts showing a profit.

External forces include the financing market — the universe of people and institutions that constitute funding sources for a company — as well as the larger business market in which it operates. Understanding these forces can help an entrepreneur develop a fundraising strategy.

Pure financial investors are in the game to make the most money they can from their investment in a company. But even they can make mistakes and act impulsively. Continue reading

Meaningful Gestures: Corrales Company Puts VAF Grant to Work

Belinda Snyder

Belinda Snyder, Program Manager, LANL Technology Transfer Division

Ideum, a Corrales-based company founded in 1999, needed help updating its successful gesture-based software and preparing it for international release. In 2011, it was awarded one of three $100,000 grants that Los Alamos National Security gives tech-based innovators every year through its Venture Acceleration Fund to develop commercial uses for innovative technology and get them to market as quickly as possible.

Ideum first released GestureWorks in the summer of 2009 as a free, unfinished (or “alpha”) version of its software, which analyzes and simulates human gestures for the kinds of touch-activated tables that are increasingly used in interactive educational exhibits. Later that year, Ideum issued an improved version as a commercial product that educators could use to design compelling “touch-table” demonstrations of scientific concepts. Continue reading

Microloans

The extension of very small loans to borrowers who typically lack collateral, steady employment and a verifiable credit history. It is designed not only to support entrepreneurship, but also in many cases to empower women and uplift entire communities by extension.

Trade Missions

Trade missions are international trips by government officials and business people that are organized by agencies of national or provincial governments for the purpose of exploring international business opportunities.

Lean Concepts

Services designed to streamline the processes of your facilities and supply chain to help you lower your expenses and downtime while increasing productivity.

Market Intelligence

Market intelligence is the information relevant to a company’s markets, gathered and analyzed specifically for the purpose of accurate and confident decision-making in determining market opportunity, market penetration strategy, and market development metrics.

Networking

Business networking is a socioeconomic activity by which groups of like-minded businesspeople recognize, create or act upon business opportunities. A business network is a type of social network whose reason for existing is business activity.

Franchise

A franchise is a business model that involves one business owner licensing trademarks and methods to an independent entrepreneur. Sometimes, franchises are referred to as chains.