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Help for High-Tech Startups
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Business New Haven
3/4/2002
By: Anne-Marie Brungard
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A grant of $20,000 may not sound like major money in the capital-intensive technology world, but it is the beginning of the road paved with venture capital funds for two local companies.
DreamReacher and E-Lite Technologies Inc. were winners of a technical-assistance competition sponsored by Fleet Bank and the state's Department of Economic & Community Development (DECD). Some 40 companies applied for the funds. An independent panel of experienced VC investors, industry leaders and bankers narrowed the list to 12 finalists based on the viability of the business concept, potential for future venture funding and technical-assistance needs.
DECD and Fleet Development Ventures, a subsidiary of Fleet Bank, awarded $20,000 technical grants to five for-profit Connecticut enterprises seeking venture capital to fund a start-up or to fuel growth and expansion of an existing business.
But DreamReacher and E-Lite Technologies have something else in common: Both received technical assistance from the Enterprise Center Inc. of New Haven. The market research, financial planning and management advice given by the Enterprise Center, a non-profit organization that provides technical assistance and secures venture capital for high-tech startups, helped the companies emerge as winners.
DreamReacher, a Rocky Hill startup with plans to open an office in New Haven, is the first Internet-based retirement planning application that integrates lifestyle planning with traditional financial services planning.
According to Ray Welnicki, DreamReacher's COO, the Enterprise Center did an outstanding job taking the company through the startup issues. “The center assisted with helping us redo our business model and business plan, but most importantly, getting us connected to sources of funding,” Welnicki says.
E-Lite Technologies, a Trumbull-based spin-off of the Timex Corp., manufactures electroluminescent (EL) lamps under the trade name FlatLite. This lighting is produced in a low-cost, continuous process and has numerous specialized applications. E-Lite received technical assistance from the Enterprise Center as a result of an existing contract between EC and the Bridgeport Economic Resource Center.
Local runners-up in the competition included ScreenMentor, a New Haven startup education project using artificial intelligence, and One Trace Technologies, also of New Haven, which creates software designed to track valuable assets.
Yale University, the United Illuminating Co. and New Haven Savings Bank fund the Enterprise Center. For high-tech companies with dreams of hanging a shingle in New Haven, EC head Carol Schilling assists with securing funding while providing valuable financial and management consulting.
The Enterprise Center in its three years has helped to raise equity financing for iEDIGroup, AQ Solutions and Screen Mentor, all of New Haven, and Integrated Delivery Solutions, a Westbrook company moving to New Haven. “As a business catalyst we have to select businesses with the greatest promise of making $30 million to $50 million in [annual] sales within five years,” Schilling explains.
Other technical assistance grant winners include New England Solution Systems, Nour Heart and PCC Technology Group, all of Bloomfield.
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