By Sandy Nelson for Finance New Mexico

While New Mexico hasn’t attracted the type of venture capital that flocks to entrepreneurial hot spots like San Francisco and other West Coast cities, equity investors are pumping money into promising startups all over the state. Those investors might be venture capitalists, but they’re more likely to be angel investors, family members and friends, and crowdfunders.

In 2016, according to the National Venture Capital Association, 11 New Mexico companies received capital funding from venture capitalists — small potatoes when compared with VC investment in more than 2,650 companies in California and 84 in Arizona. Continue reading →

By Paul Braverman for Finance New Mexico

Spider sculpture at Meow Wolf; photo courtesy Creative Startups

When the educational and networking nonprofit Coronado Ventures Forum (CVF) launched in 1994, most professional equity investments in New Mexico were being made in lab spin-off companies — those formed to commercialize technology developed at one of the state’s two national laboratories. CVF brought California-based venture capitalists to New Mexico to impart knowledge and best practices to neophyte investors and entrepreneurs.

Twenty-three years later, the organization is still focused on education and building the state’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, but like many of the entities it helps, CVF has stayed relevant by responding to a changing environment. Continue reading →

By Ebetuel (Beto) Pallares, PhD, Founder of Joseph Advisory Services and Investor-in-Residence, Arrowhead Center at NMSU

An entrepreneur who’s ready to let investors contribute equity to her promising venture needs to shape an agreement that allows others to share in the rewards but lets her retain significant control over her creation.

The rough draft of that agreement is called a term sheet. It’s essentially the template for the legal contract that ultimately spells out the responsibilities and relationships of business partners.

Commonly used by professionals during pre-investment negotiations, a term sheet can also be used by small-business owners to discuss terms with investors, including friends and family members. The document aims to protect the interests of all parties to the deal and prevent the disputes that can destroy personal and professional relationships if things don’t work out as expected. Continue reading →

By Alexia Constantaras, Attorney at Law, Montgomery & Andrews, P.A.

Lenders that resell or buy mortgage loans might feel the impact of a February decision by the New Mexico State Supreme Court that affects their ability to foreclose if the borrower defaults.

The case, Bank of New York v. Joseph A. Romero, involved a Chimayó man who refinanced a mortgage he had taken on a home he inherited from his father decades earlier. Romero secured the original loan to open a business in Española; the 2006 Equity One refinance was done to pay off that older mortgage and other debts.

Romero claimed his business made approximately $5,600 per month, but Equity One didn’t confirm that information Continue reading →

By Bill Hartman, President and CEO, Ion Linac Systems, and President, The W. Hartman Group

I’m not a venture capitalist, but I’ve headed up several successful technology startups and recently ran an early stage software company that raised almost $2 million in “seed stage” funding. I’m now leading a pre-revenue New Mexico startup raising our first equity-based funding.

As anyone who has done this knows, raising startup funding in New Mexico is challenging — partially because our state is relatively isolated from the national playing field, but also because of the challenges the New Mexico and broader US venture capital communities have faced meeting the returns expected by their investors and the VCs’ ability to raise new investment capital. The amount of venture capital available has decreased as the initial funding of 8-10 years ago has been fully deployed in startup companies, but exits and positive returns from those investments have so far been relatively few.

Continue reading →

By Finance New Mexico

Accounts receivable represents money a business will get when — and if — the client pays his bill. It’s not money in the bank, but it’s money the business expects to collect within 30 to 60 days.

While waiting, many businesses that are owed large amounts of money — either because of generous or traditionally slow payment policies or foot-dragging clients — can struggle with cash flow shortfalls and be unable to pay their employees and vendors on time. Continue reading →

By Terry Brunner, State Director, USDA Rural Development Agency

Daven Lee got much more than money when she received a $12,500 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development program in 2010.

After eight years of selling her handmade soaps and lotion bars at the Santa Fe Farmers Market and other local outlets, the owner of Milk & Honey Soap wanted to go from retail to wholesale. But first she needed a business plan – complete with financial projections – that could attract big investors.

“The funding allowed me to bring in a business adviser,” she said of the funding that matched her own $12,500 investment. “I wanted a road map.” Continue reading →

By Finance New Mexico

A crowdfunding campaign to finance a movie about TV character Veronica Mars recently set a record — $2 million in 10 hours — on the Kickstarter platform. The backers were fans of the show and wanted to see a movie based on the character. In return for this donation, the contributors will get rewards, such as DVDs of the movie or other swag.

That’s a far cry from the typical crowdfunding project, which usually aims at a smaller target. But it suggests the possibilities of micro-financing vehicles that use the global reach of the internet to support projects unable to secure more traditional loans. Continue reading →