Southern Capitol Ventures
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Type | Privately-held company |
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Founded | 2000 |
Location | Raleigh, North Carolina, United States |
Key people | Ben Brooks: Founding Partner Jason Caplain: General Partner |
Industry | Venture Capital Funding |
Portfolio Companies | Art.com ChannelAdvisor |
Website | http://www.southerncapitolventures.com |
Southern Capitol Ventures is a venture capital firm, located within the Research Triangle Park region of North Carolina, dedicated to helping outstanding entrepreneurs build market-leading companies. The company is focused on providing capital and guidance to leading early-stage technology and life science companies in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic.
Southern Capitol Ventures deploys a very disciplined investment strategy, investing in companies where they have significant knowledge and domain expertise. They are often the first investor to become involved with a company. Southern Capitol Ventures also limits the number of companies in which they invest to ensure that their portfolio companies get the attention they need to succeed. The company's unique approach gives them one of the highest partner-to-company ratios in the industry.
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[edit] Partners
Southern Capitol Ventures' partners, including Ben Brooks, Jason Caplain, David Jones and Dave Murray, have extensive experience in the early-stage market as investors, entrepreneurs, and executives. Their work with a company spans far beyond their initial investment. The partners help entrepreneurs manage their companies by providing strategic advice on operational, marketing, sales and fundraising issues. They often become involved very early in a company's development and help open doors to potential customers, partners and other investors.
[edit] Advisory Board
Additionally, Southern Capitol Ventures' strength comes from their successful Advisory Board, their strategic regional involvement and their well-known investors.
The company's Advisory Board includes some of the top executives and entrepreneurs in the Southeast region. Many of their companies have successfully raised venture capital, grown substantially, and exited through a sale or an IPO. All of them have been publicly recognized for their exceptional achievements.
[edit] Regional Involvement
Southern Capitol Ventures is a member of the Council for Entrepreneurial Development. The Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED), a private, non-profit organization, was founded in 1984 to stimulate the creation and growth of high impact companies in the greater Research Triangle area. With more than 3,500 active members representing 1,000 companies, CED is the largest entrepreneurial support organization in the US. CED provides an interactive forum for entrepreneurs, investors, service professionals, academicians, researchers and public policy makers who combine their energies to create an environment in which entrepreneurship can flourish. CED helps entrepreneurs in a wide range of industries and at all stages of development-from high-tech product based organizations to professional service firms, from one-person start-ups to 1000-person businesses. CED has several different membership categories with different levels of member benefits.
Southern Capitol Ventures helps sponsor a student scholarship at Elon University. Elon is a premier private university founded in 1889 and governed by a 41-member board of trustees. The campus is located on more than 575 acres in the town of Elon, which is 45 minutes northwest of Research Triangle Park and 20 minutes east of Greensboro, N.C. Elon was recently named to the U.S. News & World Report’s top 10 list for universities in the south and three of Elon’s academic programs were ranked among the best in the nation.
Southern Capitol Ventures is a member of NCTA. NCTA is the primary voice of the Information Technologies industry in North Carolina dedicated to promoting and strengthening the electronics, telecommunications, software, Internet and related service industries through increased public awareness, and to provide a forum to learn, educate, communicate, promote, network and implement actions.
The North Carolina Biotechnology Center is an investor in Southern Capitol Ventures. The North Carolina Biotechnology Center was established in 1981 by the state General Assembly, and is the nation's first state-sponsored initiative to develop the biotechnology industry. In its 15-year history, the Center has helped recruit big names to North Carolina, such as Biogen and Covance. It has also attracted faculty to the state's universities and addressed major policy issues regarding biotechnology in North Carolina. The North Carolina Biotechnology Center's mission is to provide long-term economic benefit to North Carolina through support of biotechnology research, development, and commercialization statewide. The Center is active at all points in the movement of biotechnology from ideas to marketable products.
Along with Cisco and SAS, Southern Capitol Ventures was one of the founding sponsors of the TechExec, a quarterly, invitation-only networking event for the Research Triangle's upper-level executives. It provides a forum for leaders from the area's top life science and technology firms to meet one another in a comfortable social setting. The program has enjoyed tremendous popularity since its inception in 2003.
[edit] Investors
The company's investors include some of the top executives from industry-leading companies in the Research Triangle region, Silicon Valley and around the world. Southern Capitol Ventures has the financial and technical support of the North Carolina Biotechnology Center and all of its partners and advisors are investors in the fund.
Southern Capitol Ventures works hard to make sure this valuable network is readily accessible to all of their portfolio companies.
[edit] Investor Portfolio
[edit] Art.com
With up to 12 million visitors per month, Art.com is the world's leading online art marketplace. A trusted art resource, Art.com leverages technology to provide consumers the largest selection of wall art, including reproductions, original works and pre-framed art selections, as well as high-quality custom framing services. Founded in 1995 and based in Research Triangle Park, NC, Art.com is dedicated to providing consumers with high quality art, along with an excellent customer shopping experience. In 2004 Art.com was awarded the prestigious "Stevie Award" by the American Business Awards for Best E-Commerce website. Art.com merged with AllPosters.com in March 2005.
[edit] ChannelAdvisor.com
ChannelAdvisor provides technology and services that enable industry-leading retailers and manufactures to sell their products across multiple online marketplaces such as eBay, Amazon.com, Overstock.com, comparison shopping engines such as Shopping.com, Shopzilla, Nextag and Froogle and search engines such as Google and Yahoo! ChannelAdvisor processes over $90m/month (> $1B/yr) in gross merchandise volume on behalf of its customers. ChannelAdvisor solutions combine best practices, innovative software applications and integration technology to dramatically accelerate online channel sales. ChannelAdvisor's customers include IBM, Best Buy, Sears and Motorola. ChannelAdvisor Corporation is headquartered in Research Triangle Park, NC with offices in Seattle, United Kingdom and Germany.
[edit] Motricity
Motricity is a global leader in Mobile Marketplace Management, offering the industry’s only managed suite of mobile content services. Motricity's Fuel™ 5 platform and suite of managed services reduce the time-to-market for new mobile services, create new revenue streams and improve brand loyalty through expert mobile merchandising and customer relationship management. Motricity is the leader in powering mobile communities, leveraging the strength of mobile community provider M7 Networks, acquired by Motricity in 2005. Motricity's Fuel platform recently received the GSM Association Award for "Best Service Delivery Platform" and was named "2005 Premium Mobile Content Platform of the Year" by Frost & Sullivan. By offering technology and services that unify the mobile content ecosystem, Motricity creates compelling user experiences and delivers profitable mobile content services for top brands such as BET, Cingular, Verizon Wireless, China Unicom, O2, Amazon.com, Palm and a network of consumer Web sites, including eReader.com, PalmGear.com and PocketGear.com. Motricity is headquartered in Research Triangle Park, N.C., and has offices in Beijing, London, Munich and San Diego.
[edit] Synthematix
Synthematix, Inc. based in Research Triangle Park, NC, provides fully integrated software solutions for chemists. Synthematix’s proprietary technology allows chemists to conceive, design, calculate, record and report experiments. Synthematix’s tools consist of the ARTHUR™ suite of informatics products, as well as Library Builder and StructureSearch technology. Synthematix customers include Sigma-Aldrich, Biogen Idec, Boston University’s CMLD, Eisai Research Institute, Incyte Corporation, Inspire Pharmaceuticals, Kalexsyn, Memory Pharmaceuticals, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, OSI Pharmaceuticals and Plexxikon Corporation. Symyx Technologies (NASDAQ:SMMX) announced the acquisition of Synthematix in February 2005.
[edit] Batanga.com
Batanga is the result of the merger between two deep content online Latino leaders – Batanga.com and PlanetaTV.com – becoming the premier online destination for US Hispanics. Batanga’s flagship destination – Batanga.com – offers the deepest content offering across passion-driving categories such as Latin music, sports, and autos. Batanga reaches Hispanics online, regardless of language preference through rich, deep and interactive content and with the largest inventory of rich media placements. Batanga is focused on delivering integrated marketing solutions, including content production and product integration.
[edit] FullSeven
FullSeven Technologies is the world leader in providing one-to-one Web-enhanced Email communications for businesses. FullSeven is a business unit of Research Triangle Software, recognized as one of the fastest growing software companies in the region. Customers include: United States Army, SAS Canada, Thomson/RIA, Clarkston Consulting, Foley & Lardner, McGuireWoods, Greater Richmond Chamber of Commerce and Austin Federal Credit Union. FullSeven is headquartered in Cary, N.C. FullSeven was acquired by Research Triangle Software in February 2004.
[edit] The Atlantis Group
The Atlantis Group, LLC is an angel investment group designed to capitalize on the explosive growth in the entrepreneurial activity and venture financing primarily in North Carolina. Atlantis' strength lies in its members—a group of highly successful investors with solid experience in selecting investments and in assisting in the growth of the group's portfolio companies.