Getting Funded

Congratulations to the new class of Connectors for Boston World Partnerships! The new list of Connectors is impressive and features two TCN partners:

• Lauren Celano, CEO, Propel Careers (TCN Sponsor and Speaker)
• Jason Evanish, Founder, Greenhorn Connect (TCN Community Partner)

Lauren and Jason join with these current TCN-affiliated BWP Connectors:

• Christopher Mirabile, Managing Director, LaunchPad Venture Group (TCN Advisory Board and Speaker)
• Jeremy Halpern, Partner, Nutter, McClennen & Fish (TCN Board of Directors - Chair)
• Ovidiu (Ovi) Bujorean, Senior Associate, Rudyard Partners (TCN Advisory Board)

By Dan Allred, Senior Relationship Manager at Silicon Valley Bank and Board member of The Capital Network

These are exciting times for the Boston start-up community. New entrepreneurs, new investors and new companies are everywhere, and experienced entrepreneurs and investors are lining up to mentor them. Nowhere is this dynamic more clear than in Kendall Square, and the Venture Café at the Cambridge Innovation Center is quickly becoming the nexus of much of that activity.

I’ll give you an example of what I’m talking about. I went to an event at the Venture Café one evening last week, and as I walked out of the elevator I immediately ran into one of my clients who is also a fellow BOD member at The Capital Network (TCN), a non-profit focused on addressing the “capital gap” for early-stage start-ups. As she and I caught up, a contract CFO who works with at least a dozen venture backed companies (including her company) approached us and joined in on our conversation. From there, I proceeded down the hallway and ran into ANOTHER client of mine, this time a semiconductor company. I chatted with that team for a few minutes and then FINALLY made it to the Venture Café event, which was attended by over 50 entrepreneurs, most of whom I had never met before. There were several VCs and angels in the crowd that evening as well.

Clearly, good things are happening at the Cambridge Innovation Center, and the Venture Café is quickly becoming the place to meet the next generation of entrepreneurs. With that in mind, I’m very excited to announce the launch of TCN UpStart Roundtables which will feature CEOs with many years of experience to help mentor brand new entrepreneurs. This initiative is a collaboration between TCN and the Venture Café, and we at Silicon Valley Bank are pleased to leverage our network to make sure that there are always experienced entrepreneurs and CEOs on hand to lead discussions about start-up war stories and the decision making process inside of a start-up as well as to provide insight on what keeps these entrepreneurs and CEOs up at night.

Our line-up for the first three sessions of the TCN UpStart Roundtable is as follows:

• Thursday March 31^st: Panos Panay – founder & CEO of Sonicbids
• Thursday April 28^th: Leslie Williams – serial life sciences entrepreneur and current CEO of ImmusanT.
• Thursday May 26^th: Doug Levin – founder of Black Duck Software and founder & CEO of Ayeah Games.
• Thursday June 23rd: Eric Giler - CEO of Witricity and former CEO of Brook Trout and Groove Mobile

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Leslie Williams is a member of The Capital Network’s Board of Directors.

From this original post by Mass High Tech.

Born from research in Australia, new Cambridge startup ImmusanT Inc. has launched to commercialize a therapy that aims to treat celiac disease like a simple allergy with regular injections of a therapy.

According to Leslie J. Williams, founder, president and CEO of ImmusanT, what attracted her to the core concepts behind the company was “the science – the simplicity and the elegance of the science.” That science came from Nexpep Pty. Ltd., based in Melbourne, Australia, which had been founded by Bob Anderson, a gastroenterologist and an expert in immunology and clinical management of celiac disease at The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research.

Williams was contacted by Anderson when he was in Melbourne’s sister city of Boston doing a lecture tour, as someone who had been recommended to him for her expertise on bringing Nexpep into the U.S. market. What was planned to be a one hour lunch turned into three, Williams said, and she and Anderson began plans to make Nexpep an American company.

That led to the founding of ImmusanT in December, which then acquired the assets of Nexpep after landing an unspecified amount of seed funding from “high net worth individuals,” Williams said. She did say that the seed funding could possibly go to as high as $1 million, before the company would need to land a planned Series A venture capital round.

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By Mike Grandinetti, TCN Mentor (see Mike’s bio at the end of the article)

Based on this post via BostInnovation.com

For GreenGoose, the journey from Oregon to Providence to Cambridge, and finally to last week’s Launch Conference in San Francisco, has been intense and rewarding. This is the classic entrepreneurial story of how hard work, frugality, determination to see your vision realized and confronting your fears combine to produce a successful outcome. For GreenGoose’s founder, having the support of a group of mentors and advisors along the way gave him the courage and confidence to keep moving forward despite moments of self-doubt.

Brian Krejcarek has been building physical things for as long as he can remember, and until this week, his most noteworthy creation was a cabin that he built in the woods near his home. Based on the overwhelmingly positive reaction that he has engendered amongst some of the US’ most prestigious and prolific angel investors, founders and entrepreneurs this past week, this is no longer the case. As of Thursday night, it is clear that GreenGoose now easily qualifies as Brian’s most impressive achievement to date.

Brian came to the Northeast to advance his idea, looking for a program to provide him with mentoring and capital. Ultimately, he was connected to Betaspring, a mentor driven accelerator program for technology and design engineers which is based in Providence, Rhode Island and is a member of the TechStars Network.

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