Steve and his partner Bruce Barron run Origin Ventures, an early stage VC firm. He's invested in VHT (where he works with Brian Balduf and sits on the board with Bob Geras, Howard Katz and David Robbin) , iNest (Andy Wolf), and ClaimForce (Stephen Applebaum, Howard Tullman).
> Origin Ventures
> VHT
> iNest
> ClaimForce
> Quill
> U of I
Bob is the Godfather (in the good sense) of the local technology investors. He's funded, advised, founded or run more companies than we'll ever profile. That includes Intellext (Al Wasserberger), VHT (Brian Balduf), ShowingTime (Scott Woodard), Katabat Corporation (Eric Antonow, Dave Sidwell), Advanced Diamond Technologies, Arryx, Merge Heathcare, MEDX, Sivox, OrthoScan, Genix Therapeutics, Bias Power, Capital Growth, Exadigm. He founded budget motel chain Sixpence Inns which was acquired by Motel 6. As part of a telecom venture, he was guarded by warlords as he set up earth stations in Siberia. He's also been involved in the following funds: Kettle Partners (Mark Achler), K-B Partners (Keith Bank), Crestview Capital, Dunrath Partners, Ceres Venture Fund, Artesian Capital.
> Intellext
> Katabat
> VHT
> ShowingTime
> Arryx
> Merge Heathcare
> Bias Power and far too many others to list
> Northwestern
You'd think these guys a real domestic side with past with investments in iNest (buyer rebates for new homes), VHT (formerly Video Home Tours), and Home Director (an IBM home networking spinout). Origin makes early-stage investments in front-end ecommerce, medical device companies, and biotechnology ventures. Their success of their first fund was driven by the sale of iNest's to Interactive Corp (IAC). Fund II has made it's first investment with a stake in Claimforce, an infrastructure to improve insurance claims handling.
Steve had various roles at office supply giant Quill (including overseeing ecommerce) before it was sold to Staples for $1B. He began as an angel investor, formed Origin and has been entrepreneurial in developing the funding community. Bruce has been CEO of APNS, Gynex Pharmaceuticals (sold to Savient Pharmaceuticals), Pharmatec (merged with Pharmos Corp) and Xtramedics (merged with Athena Medical Corp. in 1994) and is a seemingly recovered CPA.
Dimensions: 2 current/4 past cos x 6 years x $TBD fund size
Target Sectors: front-end ecommerce, medical devices, biotech
Target stage/size: early stage. $500K to $1MM
Location: Chicago [Northbrook] + www.originventures.com
BVP focuses on technology-enabled business and healthcare services. Their portfolio includes TrueAdvantage (on-demand lead generation), SnagAJob.com (hourly-worker recruitment site), Payroll Associates (small business payroll), Encover (outsourced service sales), Pinstripe (recruitment outsourcing), Austin Logistics (decisioning and analytics for financial services companies), HireRight (background checking). They fund early to growth-stage companies with an emphasis on 1) outsourced services, 2) financial services and 3) information services.
Devin joined BVP after five years with Boston-based Great Hill Partners where he invested in financial and information services companies. Prior to that he was with William Blair Capital Partners investing WBCP V. Jim Pavlik joined BVP following business school at Kellogg and was previously with Madison Dearborn Partners.
Dimensions: 20 portfolio companies x 6 years x $100 million
Target Sectors: technology-enabled services, medical devices
Target stage/size: Early-to-growth stage, need to see traction in customers, revenue or proof that customers want it. $1MM-$7MM
Location: Chicago [Loop] + www.bairdventurepartners.com
