A Grander Venture

A Grander Venture

FINANCE by Dave Szymanski | Tampa Bay Editor

The Tampa-based Florida Venture Forum has expanded its reach beyond

the state's borders in matching venture capitalists with local companies.

Persystent Technologies, a Tampa enterprise software firm, raised $7 million in its "A" financing round from three investment firms, including one from Restin, Va.

Another Tampa company, Ideal Image, a hair-removal chain that uses lasers, attracted HIG Ventures of Miami - investors who gave it its entire round of financing, or $14 million.

Still others eventually went public: InTellon Inc., an Ocala firm that designs and sells integrated circuits for powerline communications; and AuthTec Corp., a Melbourne-based provider of fingerprint authentication sensors and solutions to the high-volume PC, wireless device, and access control markets.

The catalyst? The Florida Venture Forum, a growing and influential not-for-profit business organization that brings together young high-growth private Florida companies and a national audience of venture capitalists, private equity investors and investment bankers.

These entrepreneurial companies need to have talented management teams, proprietary technology, high-growth potential and should be seeking later-stage funding. Even if a company is not seeking funding, the Forum encourages it to present at the conference to showcase the company for marketing purposes. The last conference attracted about 250 venture capitalists across the country.

Other than consistent growth in investment dollars, the organization has gone from a South Florida event to a statewide meeting to a series of events for attracting investors and educating young Florida companies and entrepreneurs. Throughout the year, the Forum provides monthly programs on a statewide basis.

Educational programs cover topics such as raising debt and equity capital, human resources, finance, management, marketing and research and development. Panelists consist of high-ranking executives who share their experiences with the audience, providing candid management and financial advice and hands-on technical assistance.

Over its 23-year history, the Forum has attracted more than $1.4 billion in investment to Florida companies.

"It has come a long way as an organization, especially in the past seven to eight years," says Ray Weadock, founder and CEO of Persystent Technologies, which also presented at a Mid-Atlantic venture conference in Baltimore in the past year.

Coming home

In a nod to the growing number of new companies in west Florida, the Forum will bring its 17th annual venture capital conference Jan. 29-30 to the Gulf Coast for the first time in its history.

The young companies and investors will meet at the Renaissance Vinoy Hotel and Resort in St. Petersburg. In 2009, the conference is coming to Naples.

The criteria for the presentations are entrepreneurial, Florida-based companies in business for at least three years, with a minimum of $500,000 in annual revenue.

Out of more than 340 applications from businesses across Florida, a selection committee of venture capitalists and private equity investors pick 20 to 25 companies. The presenting companies have 12 minutes to tell their story to investors.

The Forum coaches them on business plan writing, public speaking, "pitching" and venture capital negotiations before they make their presentations.

In May, the Forum is holding its first early stage venture capital conference in Champions Gate, a community between Tampa and Orlando.

"This is totally new for the Florida Venture Forum," says Robin Kovaleski, its executive director. "We always focused on later-stage financing. We feel it's incumbent on us to get early stage guys over the hump, get them into later-stage institutional funding, moving into mezzanine and the private-equity side."

The main venture capital event has grown from about 800 people in 2003 to more than 1,200 today.

Twenty-five companies did formal presentations at the last conference in February in Boca Raton. Fifteen of those were funded at the conference as investors invested $112 million. That eclipsed the previous year's record of $108 million.

Although it helps dozens of new Florida companies and inventors get off the ground, it has remained true to its original mission: Helping service providers, such as attorneys, accountants, airlines, business valuators and real estate professionals.

"If you go to North Carolina, there's the Research Triangle," Kovaleski says. "If you come to Florida, where do you go to find new, progressive companies? Here, we're giving it all to them at one time."

Beginnings in South Florida

The Forum began in Miami in 1984 when John Cole, Nick Lash and a group of other attorneys, accountants and other South Florida professional service providers tried to come up with a way to build their businesses.

The hiring of Kovaleski in 2003 as its first full-time executive director was significant because the Forum was making a commitment to expand statewide. Her background in public and investor relations and consulting helped the organization build more business relationships statewide and keep communication lines open.

That same year, the organization also moved its headquarters office to Tampa, where Kovaleski worked, to be more centrally located in its push north across Florida.

Its venture capital conference, which used to attract Southeast companies, now brings in companies from all over the nation.

"Florida attracts venture capitalists and private equity people who want to put their money to work," Kovaleski says. "It's a great time to be an entrepreneur and an entrepreneur in Florida."

The organization's board now includes business people across the Eastern seaboard. Its chairman is John Hill of Hyde Park Capital Partners in Tampa.

Florida market matures

Why have Florida companies become more attractive for investors? Because the market has matured and given birth to breakthrough companies.

"Florida is coming of age," Kovaleski says. "The state has good, strong management teams now. The Scripps Research Institute, SRI, they are putting Florida on the map."

The proof of this is who attends the Forum's events. The audience includes west coast investors, from California and Seattle.

"If they don't explore what's here, it will be too little, too late and they will miss an opportunity," Kovaleski says.

Florida is attractive for investors not only because of its growth, but because of its business diversity. "We're not just about agriculture and semiconductors," she says.

"We serve 20 to 25 of the best companies in Florida. We want the nation to look at them."

BY THE NUMBERS

Rising Ventures

Total money raised annually through the Florida Venture Forum programs:

2007 $112 million

2006 $108 million

2005 $82 million

2004 $64 million

Source: Florida Venture Forum

REVIEW SUMMARY

Organization: Florida Venture Forum

Industry: Corporate finance

Key: Match venture capitalists to Florida companies needing financing