Portfolio Profiles: Newbury Ventures –

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif./PARIS – Newbury Ventures focuses on seed- and early-stage communications and health-care companies in the United States and overseas.

The firm’s managing partners – Jay Morrison, Bruce Bauer and Ossama Hassanein, along with Partner Colleen Young – work closely with entrepreneurs and VCs around the globe to help identify, support and nurture start-ups and developing companies. Newbury assists its portfolio companies with business strategies, corporate development and management recruitment, and helps with subsequent rounds of financing.

Newbury in 1994 raised the $19 million Jerusalem Pacific Ventures L.P. for investments mainly in Israel. The vehicle is full invested. Newbury Ventures L.P. closed on $55 million in 1998 and is actively backing companies worldwide, said Jacqueline Larkin, Newbury’s chief administrative officer.

When sourcing new deals, Newbury’s staff looks for the following criteria – a strong management team and an attractive and competitive marketplace. The firm prefers to act as the lead investor or to co-invest with valuable partners. A member of Newbury’s investment team usually takes a seat on a company’s board of directors.

Following a year of planning, Newbury recently launched Global Venture Alliance, a consortium of international venture capitalists and their portfolio companies. Its main purpose is to give portfolio companies greater access to co-investors, industry leaders and recruitment opportunities, Ms. Larkin said. The 10-member alliance, which includes the international investment banking firm Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, U.K.- based Celtic House Investment Corp. and Paris-based venture firm TechnoCom, had its first annual meeting in Paris in June.

Newbury’s co-founders are Drs. Morrison and Bauer, both formerly of Berkeley International, a San Francisco-based venture firm. Ms. Ossama, a former executive vice president of Berkeley, joined Newbury in September 1997.

Following is a select list of Newbury Ventures portfolio companies:

Advanced Computer Communications (Santa Barbara, Calif.) develops remote access servers for both Internet protocol and asynchronous transport mode traffic. The company was acquired in 1998 by Ericsson.

Newbridge Networks is a co-investor.

Bridgewater Systems Corp. (Ottawa) develops, markets and supports software products for Internet protocol based transport networks.

VenGrowth is a co-investor.

Fundtech Ltd. (Ramat Gan, Israel, and Jersey City, N.J.) markets payment software that allows banks to process payments, transfer funds and manage cash electronically. The company held an IPO in 1998.

Star Ventures, APAX and CIBC Oppenheimer Corp. are co-investors.

HighWave Optical Technologies (Lannion, France) develops, manufactures and markets optical components used in systems designed to increase the capacity of high-speed transmission networks.

TechnoCom is a co-investor.

HydroCision Inc. (Wilmington, Mass.) provides miniature health-care devices used for cutting, drilling and other tissue manipulations in less invasive surgical procedures.

Zero Stage Capital is a co-investor.

Mainsail Networks Inc. (Fremont, Calif.) develops a product platform for providing “variable band” local exchange of voice, video and data to competitive access providers and competitive local exchange carriers.

Lucent Technologies, Crosspoint Venture Partners and Worldview Technology Partners are co-investors.

Netro Corp. (San Jose, Calif.) provides high-speed digital networking equipment combining millimeter wave wireless communications.

AT&T Ventures, Brentwood Venture Capital, US Venture Partners, NorWest Ventures and Cisco Systems Inc. are co-investors.

nCipher Corp. Ltd. (Boston) develops and markets computer peripherals that accelerate encryption for secure electronic commerce.

Security Dynamics Technologies Ltd. is a co-investor.

Open Telephone Network Inc. (Berkeley, Calif.) is a software company whose products will allow local exchange providers and wireless service providers to offer local number portability.

StarVentures is a co-investor.

Orchestream Ltd. (London) develops and markets software for enterprise network policy management.

Atlas Ventures, Reuters Ltd., Quester Venture Partners and Ester Dyson are co-investors.

Scorpio Communications Inc. (Or-Yehuda, Israel) provides products for asynchronous transport mode networks focused on the desktop, workgroup and wide-area markets. The company was acquired by US Robotics.

DS Polaris Fund, Giza and BEA are co-investors.

Sentillion Inc. (Andover, Mass.) provides standards-based software technology to the health-care information systems industry that enables the visual integration of health-care applications at the work station.

Polaris Venture Partners and Intersouth Partners are co-investors.

Relational Technology Systems Ltd. (Jerusalem) provides applications software and services to address the service management systems (SMS) portion of the customer-interaction software market.

Bessemer Venture Partners, Advanced Technology Ventures, Star Ventures and GE Capital are co-investors.

Newbury Ventures is located at 535 Pacific Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94133 tel. (415) 296-7408, fax. (415) 296-7416. Its Web site is www.newburyven.com.

The Sustainable Jobs Fund

DURHAM, N.C./PHILADELPHIA – The Sustainable Jobs Fund (SJF) provides seed, growth and expansion-stage financing to private companies in the recycling, remanufacturing and environmental sectors to help create jobs in poorer areas of the eastern United States.

Founded in 1998, The Sustainable Jobs Fund L.P. held a first close on $7 million in early June. The vehicle, which is expected to reach a $15 million target by the end of this year, also recently closed its first deal, a $50,000 seed-stage investment, said Anne Claire Broughton, an associate at the firm.

Unlike most venture funds, SJF has a community development focus that targets growth enterprises in some 24 states east of the Mississippi River, Ms. Broughton said. The vehicle is geared toward recycling and the environment because these are ideal sectors in which to create jobs for low-income Americans in large cities, she added. SJF, however, will consider all businesses that meet the fund’s criteria for job creation. The 10-year fund is expected to have returns between 20% and 25%, she added.

SJF provides $50,000 or more for seed, $300,000 for growth and $1 million for expansion-stage investments. The firm is in the midst of wrapping three additional seed-stage deals, Ms. Broughton said. Limited partners include MBNA America Bank (Delaware), Citibank, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and The Dakota Foundation.

SJF is the brainchild of Managing Director David Kirkpatrick, who founded SunShares Inc., a company that provided recycling for Durham. Prior to SJF, Mr. Kirkpatrick in 1994 formed KirkWorks, an economic development consulting firm that focused on recycling. While there, he organized forums that brought together promising recycling businesses with venture capitalists. It was during one of those gatherings that Mr. Kirkpatrick met Rick Defieux, a general partner at Edison Venture Fund, who wanted to help find low-skilled employment for Americans on welfare, Ms. Broughton said. The two men subsequently co-founded SJF.

Mr. Defieux is founder of SJF’s investment committee. Sandra Walker, a managing director at the firm, has 20 years experience in small-business debt and equity financing, company management and turnarounds.

Following is The Sustainable Jobs Fund’s most recent portfolio company:

EMPower Corp. (Everett, Mass.) manufactures electric scooters used by employees of large industrial companies to get from one location to the next.

Investors’ Circle, a San Francisco-based network of socially conscious angel investors, is a co-investor.

The Sustainable Jobs Fund is located at P.O. Box 15909, Durham, N.C. 27704 tel. (919) 220-8065 fax. (919) 220-9720. Its Web site is www.sjfund.com.

Women’s Growth Capital Fund

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Women’s Growth Capital Fund makes equity investments primarily in early- to expansion-stage East Coast companies owned or managed by women.

Women’s Growth Capital Fund I, a $30 million vehicle, has more than 70 institutional and individual investors, 70% of whom are women, said Managing Director Patty Abramson. Apart from generating significant financial returns for its investors, the fund’s other main mission is to provide women-owned businesses more access to capital and to promote the growth of such enterprises.

Women-owned businesses are defined by the firm as those in which women own a majority of equity or hold top management positions in addition to owning a significant amount of equity in a company, Ms. Abramson said. By 2000, more than 40% of all businesses in the United States will be owned by women, yet these businesses receive about 2% of the venture capital invested annually by VC firms, she added.

Although the fund mainly invests in East Coast businesses from Maine to Florida, with a focus on the Mid-Atlantic region, the vehicle also will consider co-investments with other venture firms in the Midwest as well as in the South and Western United States. The fund, which is majority women owned and managed, invests between $500,000 and $2 million in each portfolio company.

Women’s Growth is the largest firm in the East geared toward companies owned or operated by women, Ms. Abramson said. The fund also is one of three such funds in the nation licensed as a Small Business Investment Company by the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Ms. Abramson, along with Managing Directors Wendee Kanarek and Rob Stein, have more than 50 years combined experience in venture capital, financial analysis and management expertise.

To help its portfolio companies, Women’s Growth has organized the Investment and Development Committees, a group of financial and venture capital professionals that will help identify and solicit investors and investment opportunities, recommend co-investors and provide advice to women-owned businesses.

Following are Women’s Growth Capital Fund portfolio companies:

BuyersZone.com (Watertown, Mass.) operates an Internet site that allows small businesses to purchase products such as copiers, faxes, furniture, supplies and business services.

Commonwealth Capital Ventures L.P., BancBoston Ventures and OneLiberty Ventures are co-investors.

Destiny Software Corp. (Conshohocken, Pa.) is a software design and development company that integrates Internet applications with financial services companies.

Newlight Management, Blue Water Capital L.L.C. and Pennsylvania Early Stage Fund are co-investors.

Explore (Baltimore, Md.) operates before- and after-school programs in more than 80 public schools in seven states for students in kindergarten through the eighth grade.

Bright Horizons/Family Solutions is a co-sponsor.

Fran’s Healthy Helpings, Inc. (Burlingame, Calif.) makes low-fat frozen food for young children that contains no additives.

Capital Across America, and McKay Foundation are co-investors.

Physicians Quality Care (Waltham, Mass.) purchases and manages physician practices with a centralized system and searches for better reimbursement rates with insurers.

Bain Capital Fund, ABS Partners and Goldman, Sachs & Co. are co-investors.

Women.com Networks (San Mateo, Calif.) is an aggregator of content sites for women on the Internet. The company owns six sites including Women’s Wire, Health Ideas and MoneyMode.

AVI Management Partners, El Dorado Ventures, Hallmark, U.S. West, Rodale Press, Warburg Pincus Ventures Inc., Phoenix Small Cap Fund and Essex Investment Management are co-investors.

womenCONNECT.com (McLean, Va.) is an Internet community devoted to businesses and professional women. Formerly known as Women’s Connection Online, the site provides content, news summaries, chat rooms, job listings and a list of women’s organizations.

Mid-Atlantic Venture Funds and GE Capital are co-investors.

Women’s Growth Capital is located at Canal Square, 1054 31st Street, NW, Suite 110, Washington, D.C., 20007 tel. (202) 342-1431, fax. (202) 342-1203. Its Web site is www.womensgrowthcapital.com.

Correction: Zero Stage Capital, which invests in early- to late-stage Internet, information technology, health-care, biotech and telecommunications companies in the Northeastern United States, can be reached at 101 Main Street, 17th Floor, Cambridge, MA 02142.