The Arkansas Development Finance Authority's board of directors approved two investments totaling $750,000 Thursday for early stage technology investment funds.

The investments will be made through a new ADFA program called Arkansas Seed & Angel Capital Network.

ADFA's board first approved a $250,000 investment for Gravity Ventures Arkansas II LLC. Gravity is an angel capital fund with a focus on investing in seed and early-stage companies in a variety of industries in Arkansas, according to a news release from ADFA.

In the second quarter of 2012, health IT companies raised $268 million for 29 deals, a 33% increase in capital raised and a 45% increase in deals compared to the second quarter of 2011, according to the latest figures from Dow Jones VentureSource.

Not only did health IT buck the trend in the total venture capital investments market during this period--U.S.-based companies raised $8.1 billion through 863 venture capital deals during the second quarter of 2012, a 9% decline in capital and 3% decline in deals compared to the same period in 2011--but health IT garnered more investments than all other subsectors in the healthcare industry.

The solar industry has done a spectacular job lowering costs in the past three years, slashing per-watt costs in half. But that price freefall, driven by the massive scale-up of Chinese manufacturers, has put dozens, if not hundreds, of solar companies on the endangered list. To survive, fledging solar technology companies are rethinking strategies that seemed rock solid just a few years ago.

The danger is clear. Abound Solar went out of business earlier this summer because it simply couldn't stay ahead of the blistering pace of industry cost reductions (see "Abound Solar: Another Solar Casualty"). Its demise follows the spectacular collapse of Solyndra and bankruptcies, plant closings, and restructurings at many other solar providers.

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, today greeted Healthbox's decision to base Europe's first healthcare accelerator in London. 

Founded by US venture capital firm Sandbox Industries, Healthbox supports healthcare entrepreneurs by providing early stage businesses with seed capital and connections to organisations and individuals from across the healthcare spectrum including private and public providers, investors, retailers, business experts and national health stakeholders. 

Boris Johnson said: "It is vital that entrepreneurial individuals who have had their light bulb moment, get the support they need to progress their business. Healthbox is all about nurturing innovative people, helping their ideas to develop into expanding businesses and creating jobs for Londoners, so I am thrilled to welcome them to the capital. Their commitment recognises London is Europe's science and tech capital, with access to premier academic centres, hospitals and the largest cluster of life science businesses. This is what I will be broadcasting to the world during Games-time to attract even more investment into London." 

Open innovation will be very important, and very soon. In the near future, the winners will be the firms that are best at scouting, acquiring and commercializing the best ideas, regardless of their source, says Jeffrey Phillips. That’s a far cry from where things stand today. Most firms have difficulty managing internal innovation, much less thinking about or shifting to an open innovation model. Here’s why you may not be ready for this revolution, and what you should be doing to prepare.

Blueseed, a technology incubator planned for global entrepreneurs aboard a cruise ship anchored off Silicon Valley's coast, needs some green.

The project's founders unveiled plans for Blueseed in August 2011 as a way for foreign tech entrepreneurs to avoid U.S. work-visa restrictions while still having easy access to Silicon Valley talent and venture capital.

But Blueseed is now facing its own fundraising issues. It still needs to snag $130,000 to complete a $500,000 planning-stage funding round by the end of August, according to Blueseed co-founder Dario Mutabdzija.

Building relationships takes time but growing and maintaining them long term takes perseverance, energy and purpose.  Jack Trout, Ad Exec and Author of  Big Brands, Big Trouble says:

“Marketing battles take place in the mind of a consumer or prospect. That’s where you win. That’s where you lose.”

We live in seriously disposable times. People outgrow their use for things and each other, sadly rather quickly. I always take note when people talk about following people and companies for a “long time.”  That’s really hard to do today.  So how do you build a long term following, loyalty and community? How do you win in the minds of the consumer?

Did you ever wonder how a new entrepreneur knows how to “do the right thing” for his business? Most experts believe that the essence of doing the right thing is ethics. Translating that into business value, a study by Wirthlin Worldwide concluded that 80% of customers still base a good portion of their buy decision on their perception of that firm’s ethics.

Ethics are generally defined as a set of societal standards that encompass the norms of the community. These norms are not genetic, and they have to be learned. At the base of these are moral values, but in my view most of the rest are gleaned from experience, parents, and formal education.

I have written about this topic before but it's important and I want to say it again.

Investing in startups is risky. If you make just one investment, you are likely going to lose everything. If you make two, you are still likely to lose money. If you make five, you might get all your money back across all five investments. If you make ten, you might start making money on the aggregate set of investments.

The math behind this is pretty simple. If you assume that the average startup has a 33% chance of making money for the investors, a 33% chance of returning capital, and a 33% chance of losing everything and that only 10% will make a big return (>10x), then you can model this out.

The longtime head of New Jersey’s economic development agency stepped down Wednesday, a surprise departure that comes during a widespread analysis of how the New Jersey Economic Development Authority administers business assistance.

Caren Franzini announced her resignation during a special agency board meeting Wednesday morning, leaving after more than 20 years at the head of New Jersey’s main economic development agency. A top staffer to Gov. Chris Christie, Michele Brown, will take her place as CEO.

Despite investing in 21 digital commerce start-ups, some of them prominent, Forerunner Ventures has stayed in the shadows until now.

On Thursday Forerunner Managing Partner Kirsten Green stepped forward to announce the firm’s first institutional fund, a $40 million fund for mobile, social and e-commerce start-ups that was raised in five months and closed last week.

Current Forerunner portfolio companies, which will transfer to the new fund, include Birchbox, which delivers monthly samples of beauty products to customers’ doors, and Bonobos, which claims to have developed better-fitting men’s clothes.

The big seem to keep getting bigger in the current venture world.

The latest example is New Enterprise Associates, which today said it closed its 14th fund at $2.6 billion, the second-largest venture fund ever raised and NEA’s third consecutive fund near or above the $2.5 billion mark.

For Peter Barris, the firm’s managing general partner, venture industry consolidation is a fact of life and has been for some time. NEA’s mission was to figure out how to play the game.

While the economy has been miserable for small business, and many larger ones as well, the ranks of the self-employed have been growing. According to research by Economic Modeling Specialists International, the number of people who primarily work on their own has swelled by 1.3 million since 2001 to 10.6 million, a 14% increase.

This rise is partially reflective of hard times, and many of the self-employed earn only modest livings in fields such as childcare and construction. However the shift to self-employment is likely to accelerate in the future, and into higher-paying professions, for reasons including the ubiquity of the Internet, which makes it easier for some types of business to use independent contractors, as well as the reluctance of large firms to hire full-time employees with benefits.

Subjects in this post:

1.)   The Cultural Divide:  What Investors ‘Buy’

2.)   What Investors Fear

3.)   The Culture of Venture Capital:  Friend or Foe?

Last time in Part I, I discussed:

1.)   First, Three Definitions

2.)   The Russia Tech Scene

3.)   Growth in Russia

4.)   What Changed for Growth to Emerge

5.)   The Spark that Ignited the Start-up of Russia

Ah the sweet sweet mother's milk of mainlined Internet access. Who can deny what a terrific luxury it is to blast down the Infobahn while soaring through the clouds? I can! Remember what it was like to be unreachable? Here's my Harvey Dent moment: I do remember what it's like to be unreachable; it meant taking a redeye instead of a daytime flight so I wouldn't miss a day of work. Still, I can't help but look back fondly on those days...

A plan introduced last week by the president places the future of the nation's standing in math and science in the hands of highly-specialized teachers who would serve as national ambassadors and mentor fellow educators across the country. In exchange, STEM Master Teachers would receive an extra $20,000 per year on top of their annual salary. Funding for the initiative is part of the FY13 budget plan, which requires congressional approval. School districts can compete for $100 million available now, however, through an existing fund aimed at achieving similar goals of identifying and developing quality STEM teachers.

To launch the new STEM Master Teacher Corps, 50 of the best and brightest math and science teachers would be chosen through a rigorous selection process administered locally or regionally based on a set of national benchmarks. These 50 corps members would mentor additional educators over the next four years to reach 10,000 Master Teachers who are expected to improve math and science scores and develop a highly-skilled workforce through enhanced teaching and learning. The corps members also will take on leadership roles in their communities and assist school districts in methods to improve STEM instruction.

The blogger Evan Soltas has a couple of posts making the case for equity finance of higher education. Basically, instead of taking on debt, students would agree to pay a percentage of their lifetime income to the schools that educate them. You can think of this as venture-capital investments in humans. The goal is to avoid saddling students with debts that are outsized relative to their earnings, and to make it easiest to obtain capital for the most useful college degrees.

Unfortunately, this proposal is fatally plagued with adverse selection problems. Students know more about their post-college plans than people who might invest in them do, and the ones who plan to earn the least money will be the most inclined to take the equity financing deal.

The United States is the undisputed leader in global medical innovation.  Each year, we test more potential new medicines than the rest of the world combined, and we lead the world in biotechnology patents.  But continued U.S. leadership in innovation is by no means guaranteed.

I’ve spoken so many times about the risks to American innovation, particularly in biopharmaceuticals, that I may sound like a broken record – if I may use a reference to obsolete technology.  But the risk is real.  Reports from multiple sources reinforce this assertion.

Unlike physical exercise, mental workouts probably do not demand significantly more energy than usual. Believing we have drained our brains, however, may be enough to induce weariness

Between October and June they shuffle out of auditoriums, gymnasiums and classrooms, their eyes adjusting to the sunlight as their fingers fumble to awaken cell phones that have been silent for four consecutive hours. Some raise a hand to their foreheads, as though trying to rub away a headache. Others linger in front of the parking lot, unsure of what to do next. They are absolutely exhausted, but not because of any strenuous physical activity. Rather, these high school students have just taken the SAT. "I was fast asleep as soon as I got home," Ikra Ahmad told The Local, a New York Times blog, when she was interviewed for a story on "SAT hangover."

The number of people taking up entrepreneurship as a career has shot up rapidly in the last few years reportedly. More and more people are turning entrepreneurs in order to pursue their passions of doing something good for the Indian society.

This novel initiative is in turn leading to the overall development of the Indian society. The Government of India along with various public sector banks are coming up with a lot of initiatives especially for budding entrepreneurs thus motivating them to take up entrepreneurship.