Venture Capital News
Allegiance Capital to Open Twin Cities Office in Fall 2007
Allegiance Capital Corporation, a full-service investment banking firm serving mid-market companies worldwide, announces the opening of its seventh office in the fall of 2007, located in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Coinciding with the new office, Allegiance Capital also announces the addition of Joe Chavez as vice president, who will oversee the Minnesota office operations and will concentrate on financial transactions throughout the Upper Midwestern U.S.
As a major commercial business center, the Twin Cities metroplex offers a strong and diversified business base with a growing need for business investing. For Allegiance Capital, Minneapolis-St. Paul's strategic location gives the company a tremendous opportunity to serve corporate entities in the expanding manufacturing, high tech, medical, food processing and graphic arts industries.
According to the MoneyTree report from PriceWaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association, Minnesota experienced a sharp increase in venture capital investing during the second quarter 2007. A $65 million investment in CVRx Inc., a medical device company based in Maple Grove, Minn., was the third-largest venture capital deal in the nation during the second quarter. Overall, Minnesota had 14 transactions totaling $143 million during the quarter. This up tick in venture capital transactions was the highest level of activity since the third quarter of 2004.
With more than 20 years of executive sales and marketing experience, Mr. Chavez has successfully sold enterprise ERP software, outsourcing and professional services/consulting at major U.S. and European-based corporations. Based in St. Paul, his role will be to identify companies looking to expand primarily through mergers or acquisitions. According to Lonsdale, Chavez is well established within the business community, and has many years of experience in working across several industry verticals that will enable him to establish a well-balanced Allegiance Capital client base.
Prior to joining Allegiance Capital, Chavez has been recognized for his entrepreneurial and innovative solutions in helping clients consolidate a high number of disparate management processes across seven different countries in three languages at a lower cost. In addition, he helped clients assess their current processes across finance, supply-chain and human capital disciplines to transform their businesses into world-class organizations.
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Norwest Venture Partners Hires Joshua Goldman as Venture Partner
Representatives of Norwest Venture Partners (NVP), a global technology venture capital firm, announced the addition of Joshua Goldman as venture partner. Mr. Goldman brings more than 20 years of operational experience to NVP, having been an entrepreneur, CEO and board member of several high-growth technology companies. He joins two recent additions to NVP, Sergio Monsalve (former VP of marketing at Photobucket and eBay GM), and Tim Chang (former principal at Gabriel Venture Partners and executive at Gateway), who are a part of a dedicated team focused on seed, early and mid stage investments in the Internet services, consumer technology and media sectors.
Prior to joining NVP, Goldman spent more than 20 years as a repeat entrepreneur, CEO, board member and investor of several high-growth technology companies. Most recently he served as CEO of Akimbo Systems, Inc., a company backed by Cisco, AT&T and leading venture capital firms, which delivers video-on-demand content to large service operators and set-top makers including AT&T.
Previously, Goldman was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Sprout Group, a venture capital affiliate of Credit Suisse. Prior to Sprout Group he was President and CEO of mySimon, Inc., a pioneer in online comparison shopping services. At mySimon Mr. Goldman oversaw all aspects of the company's growth into one of the largest and best-known consumer ecommerce companies, culminating in its acquisition by CNET Networks in early 2000 for $730 million. Following the acquisition he was named President of CNET's Consumer Division.
Earlier in his career Goldman held management roles at USWeb/CKS, a company which went public and was then acquired by Whitman-Hart Inc.; Softbank Content Services, which was acquired by Logistix, Inc.; Phoenix Technologies, Inc. and Apple Computer.
Goldman also served on the Board of Directors at Synaptics, Inc. through its initial public offering as well as Ask Jeeves until it was acquired by IAC/Interactive Corp for $1.9 billion. In addition, he served on the Board of Directors at PremierGuide, Inc., which was acquired by Local.com and Akimbo Systems, Inc. He also served on the Board of Advisors at Zedo, PremierGuide and Hyperpia. Goldman holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Science with honors degree in Computer Science from Tufts University.
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Gary Martin Joines Heelys Inc as Chairman
The board of directors of Heelys, Inc. has been expanded to eight directors and Gary L. Martin has been selected to join the board and serve as its non-executive Chairman. Mr. Martin, 61, is President and Chief Executive Officer of Capital Southwest Corporation (NASDAQ: CSWC), which is Heelys' largest shareholder, holding 9,317,310 shares of common stock, equivalent to a 34.4% equity interest.
Mr. Martin, who has been associated with Capital Southwest or its subsidiaries since 1972, has served on its board since 1988 and was named President and CEO in July 2007. Previously, he was CEO of The Whitmore Manufacturing Company of Rockwall, Texas, a producer of industrial lubricants and a key portfolio company of Capital Southwest. He earned a BBA in finance and accounting from the University of Oklahoma, is a Certified Public Accountant and is a graduate of Harvard Business School's Advanced Management Program. Mr. Martin is a director of Alamo Group, Inc. (NYSE: ALG) and Capital Southwest Corporation (Nasdaq: CSWC).
Heelys' former Chairman, Patrick F. Hamner, will remain on the board and will serve as Senior Vice President of the company.
Heelys, Inc. designs, markets and distributes innovative, action sports-inspired products under the HEELYS brand targeted to the youth market. The Company's primary product, HEELYS-wheeled footwear, is patented dual purpose footwear that incorporates a stealth, removable wheel in the heel. HEELYS-wheeled footwear allows the user to seamlessly transition from walking or running to skating by shifting weight to the heel. Users can transform HEELYS-wheeled footwear into street footwear by removing the wheel. HEELYS-wheeled footwear provides users with a unique combination of fun and style that differentiates it from other footwear and wheeled sports products. For the year ended December 31, 2006, Heelys reported diluted earnings per share of $1.16 on net sales of approximately $188,208,000. For the six months ended June 30, 2007, the company reported diluted earnings per share of $0.75 on net sales of $123,738,000, as compared to diluted earnings per share of $0.24 on net sales of $44,596,000 in the prior year.
Capital Southwest Corporation, Dallas, Texas, established in 1961, is a venture capital and business development company with assets of more than $700 million. In 2000, it provided the capital necessary for Heelys to complete the development and marketing of its unique stealth skate-shoe.
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Event: What Do Venture Capitalists Want in a Marketer? (Aug. 28)
How important is marketing to the success of a new business? Get the inside scoop from a venture capitalist and a marketing consultant in a free online live interview at 10 a.m. PDT, Aug. 28. Anyone with a computer and Internet connection can attend and submit questions.
The California Institute of Technology Industrial Relations Center's new online community, the Technology Marketing Center (TMC), will interview El Dorado Ventures general partner Charles Beeler and Silicon Valley marketing consultant Patty Burke.
Chris Halliwell and Caltech launched the TMC online community on July 10. TMC content is provided by some of the more than 3,000 executive participants in the Industrial Relations Center's "Strategic Marketing of Technology Products" course. These executives share real-world experiences in developing product and market strategy. Case studies, blogs, and live executive interviews are accessible to anyone interested in leading cross-functional strategy development in high-tech companies.
Caltech is one of the most highly regarded institutions of research and education in science and engineering in the world. Its Industrial Relations Center (http://www.irc.caltech.edu) provides educational programs to address the business needs of technology-based companies. The Technology Marketing Center is available on the web at (http://www.technologymarketingcenter.com).
Founded in 1986, El Dorado Ventures (EDV, http://www.eldorado.com/) is a leading early-stage venture-capital firm in Menlo Park that invests across the technology sector and focuses primarily on semiconductors and systems, communications, software, and services. El Dorado has a two-decade track record of successful, early-stage technology investing, in which several EDV portfolio companies have gone public or have been acquired by major technology companies such as Ciena, Cisco Systems, nVidia, Siemens, and Texas Instruments.
With extensive VP-level marketing experience with start-up companies, Burke Marketing (http://www.pburkemarketing.com) is a technology partner with El Dorado Ventures and provides marketing and business strategies for high-growth technology companies in emerging markets. Burke Technology Marketing works with both business-to-consumer and business-to-business companies across a variety of industries.
