New fund launches to finance startups

by Betty Beard - Oct. 29, 2011 01:28 PM
The Arizona Republic

Companies appearing at the annual Invest Southwest Capital Conference this week in hopes of landing seed money have a little more reason to be optimistic this year.

While Arizona has largely been ignored when it comes to venture capital, Grayhawk Capital of Arizona on Friday announced a $28.5 million venture-capital fund that can be used to help finance growing companies and produce more jobs.

"This is really the first venture fund that's been raised in Arizona in about five years," said Brian Smith, a Grayhawk managing member. "Unfortunately, Arizona doesn't have more venture capital, but the good news is we'll have one good-sized fund off the ground here."

The $28.5million fund means Grayhawk is almost a third of the way into its goal to build a $100million fund, Smith said. He also said the company has investors standing by willing to commit another $20million if their investments can be matched.

Some of the $28.5million could be provided to the 13 companies that will be making presentations to investors later this week, with benefits for the overall economy.

"The companies that are presenting are all in information technology, life science and clean technology. And so they are the types of companies that, if they are successful, they can grow very fast and become big. The salaries they pay tend to be more than double the average per capita income, because they are looking for technical skills," Smith said.

Invest Southwest, which is similar to other conferences held around the country, is designed to bring together serious investors and companies needing investments. This year, it is attracting more people than usual because it is being merged with Venture Capital in the Rockies' fall conference.

The 13 presenting companies, including four from Arizona, were selected from a record 130 applicants, and their leaders will each have 10 minutes to describe their products and management credentials. Originally, 14 companies were selected, but one dropped out.

A few might get money immediately as a result of the conference, but most will not or will have to wait months, said Phoenix attorney Dan Mahoney, who heads Snell & Wilmer's private-equity and venture-capital practice and is a past chairman of the conference.

"Of course, there are some companies that just never get funded. It's just because of scarce capital. The number of venture capitalists out there, particularly in this Western region, have been decimated."

In general, he said venture capitalists are looking for promising technology that is proprietary and that has the potential to appeal to a large market. They also like companies that can grow rapidly and that have top-notch management.

"They will invest in the management team just as much as the product,"
Mahoney said.

The Arizona presenters this year will be:

Green Light Cost Management, a Scottsdale information-technology firm that offers services to help health-care companies manage their expenses.

MSDx Inc., a Tucson company that develops commercial products to monitor neurological and autoimmune disorders, including multiple sclerosis.

Post.Bid.Ship, also of Tucson, was founded by three University of Arizona students to use technology to streamline freight transportation.

SyCara of Scottsdale provides search-engine-optimization technology to help companies manage workflow and reports.

Another company, San Diego-based Medipacs, has a research lab in Tucson. It has created a solid-state polymer pump that offers a new way to deliver medicine.

Regardless of whether individual companies land seed money or not, the conference is significant for the Phoenix area, said Chris Wolford, a financial vice president at the Miller Group, the conference's title sponsor. The Miller Group of Scottsdale provides financial and investment services.

"There is really no other event quite like it in the state of Arizona. Each year, during the time of the conference, it kind of puts the Phoenix area and the state and really the region on display and brings a lot of venture capitalists and angel investors from both the local market and outside the local market to look at these specific companies that are presented.

"It also puts Arizona more in the minds of investors."

Source: http://www.azcentral.com/business/articles/2011/10/29/20111029invest-southwest-startups.html

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A look at Bulgaria's presidential candidates (AP)

A look at the candidates in the run-off for Bulgaria's presidency:

ROSEN PLEVNELIEV:

Supported by the ruling center-right GERB party of Prime Minister Boiko Borisov, Plevneliev, 47, is an engineer and former entrepreneur. As minister for regional development in the current government, he has been lauded for pushing through several large-scale infrastructure projects. Plevneliev pledges to support the government's drive to reform Bulgaria, which is plagued by corruption and economic crisis. He is seen as calm and pragmatic, but there are concerns that he will be overshadowed by the influential prime minister.

IVAILO KALFIN:

The candidate of the opposition Socialist party, Ivailo Kalfin, 47, is a former foreign minister and a current member of the European Parliament. Kalfin is one of the few leading left-wing politicians seen as largely untainted by the Socialist party's communist past. He built his campaign on warnings that a victory by his opponent risks giving one party a monopoly over all state institutions. Kalfin has promised to safeguard democracy and support the rule of law.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111030/ap_on_re_eu/eu_bulgaria_elections_glance

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Online MBA College Diploma in Finance ? Importance of MBA in ...

Finance is the science of funds supervision. For an organization to be prosperous, it?s significant to recognize the economic risks and rewards. Excellent finance operations also allows a enterprise to ensure optimum use of their funding worth. Needless to say, finance is the nearly all central and therefore the majority of complicated area of a business. Therefore, big and small companies are always keen on hiring industry experts who are properly trained with specialist competencies and education needed to control the finances of a firm .

With the popularity in need for finance specialists, online MBA modules have become favorite . An online MBA in Finance is a two-year degree program degree that combines theoretical experience with practical application to make sure that a graduate of MBA (Finance) has the capacity to start work as soon as they join an organization and use it at an ongoing one.

An MBA in finance helps one to get substantial knowledge on all facets of trade and business practices, along with exhaustive education on the procedure and documents related to monetary services. A finance management degree program thus covers all abilities related to finance as a part of business management . An MBA degree program with specialization in finance opens up prospects not merely for numerous market sectors but also for business banks, corporations, and securities organisations that have become very very good paymasters in the recent past. Finance graduate students are usually absorbed as controllers, cash supervisors and treasurers. A few other jobs available for finance graduate students include credit managers, financial investment associates, risk supervisors, administration advisors and CFOs.

Even though this subject is all about nail-biting accounts, it?s an ideal choice for MBA college students due to the options it has in the corporate world. By engaging in an online BCA program in finance, one is able to develop expert ability that hold superb extremely competitive benefit in the long term. A finance higher education degree allows one to gain the skill set required to undertake financial strategy for any organization . The primary employment of a finance individual is to generate financial analysis and reports that may be used to take important business decisions. By designing changes to a company?s finance management, a manager can make a huge difference to the profitability of an organization .

Hence , a superior MBA in finance gives one the chance to influence the path to achievements for any organization they work with. With the right analytic abilities and practical vigor, a finance masters is a heady mix for any organization ambitious to fight a financial downturn or seeking to make the most of a monetary upswing.

Do you realize that you can find all the details and also entry requirements concerning online mba in finance right here.

Source: http://newarticle.eu/new/online-mba-college-diploma-in-finance-importance-of-mba-in-finance.html

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China railway construction workers killed in road accident (Reuters)

SHANGHAI (Reuters) ? Twenty-one people were killed and seven injured when a vehicle carrying railway construction workers overturned in northwest China's Gansu Province on Saturday, the official Xinhua news agency said.

China has invested heavily on railway infrastructure to connect the vast country during years of strong economic growth.

But authorities recently suspended new rail projects after a collision between two high-speed trains in July killed 40 people and fanned public anger over transport safety issues.

Shanghai authorities also came under fire in September after the worst subway accident in 42 years raised fresh concerns that the world's second-largest economy was sacrificing safety in the rush to develop.

Xinhua said the vehicle overturned in Manwa township in Lintao County. It was not immediately known how many were in the vehicle, which was heading to a railway construction site.

It was also not clear if all those killed and injured were construction workers.

Local authorities are investigating the cause of the accident, Xinhua said.

(Reporting by Jacqueline Wong; Editing by Paul Tait)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/china/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111029/wl_nm/us_china_railway_accident

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Grndctrl Tracks Your Money and Estimates How Soon You Can Afford to Buy That Shiny New Gadget [Web Apps]

Grndctrl Tracks Your Money and Estimates How Soon You Can Afford to Buy That Shiny New GadgetFinding a balance between buying the things you want and maintaining financial responsibility is pretty tough, but Grndctrl is a web app that seeks to simplify your current situation and provide you with the information you want to know. All you do is enter basic info about your earnings and expenses and you'll be provided with helpful statistics including how soon you can buy that new gadget you've been pining for.

Setting up Grndctrl is ridiculously simply. You just enter your income sources (with their respective tax rates), monthly expenses, how much you're saving, and a list of things you want to buy some day. When you're done, the Grndctrl dashboard will display your daily, monthly, and yearly savings along with other handy statistics like your yearly post-tax income and how long you have to wait to afford that thing you want to buy. In my fantasy calculations (pictured above) I save about $78,000 a year and can afford to buy a new bed on Sunday. (If only that were true.)

Grndctrl is not an incredibly comprehensive finance tracker, but that's kind of the point. It requires a very minimal amount of information and provides you with the statistics that are most important to your actual life. It is a great tool for those of us who are not looking to spend a ton of time tracking every little piece of our financial situation.

Grndctrl | via MakeUseOf


You can follow Adam Dachis, the author of this post, on Twitter, Google+, and Facebook. ?Twitter's the best way to contact him, too.

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/TWx1BWfm0as/grndctrl-tracks-your-money-and-estimates-how-soon-you-can-afford-to-buy-that-shiny-new-gadget

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DeMarco: Sadly, this great series approaches end game

Only bad thing about this most unique World Series is that it's going to end

Image: FreeseReuters

It seems like it will be hard to top David Freese's heroics in Game 6, but with Game 7 looming on Friday, it's become wise to avoid predictions in a uniquely bizarre World Series.

OPINION

By Tony DeMarco

NBCSports.com contributor

updated 4:14 a.m. ET Oct. 28, 2011

Tony DeMarco

ST. LOUIS - Nobody has seen anything like Game 6. And now, we have a must-see Game 7.

Twice, the Texas Rangers were within a strike of winning their first World Series in a 51-year franchise history. But as manager Ron Washington said afterward, "it's not that easy to win a World Series, as we found out tonight.''

Cardinals manager Tony La Russa twice was ready to make a postgame goodbye salute to the hometown fans that would have come after a season-ending loss. Now, he'll be managing the first World Series Game 7 in his Hall of Fame career.

"What happened today, you had to be here to believe it,'' La Russa said.

What happened was an instant-classic game that made up in drama, excitement and big hits what it lacked in execution.

There are so many potential heroes and story lines from Game 6 and in this series ? from record-setting offensive numbers to flip-flopping MVP candidates to record numbers of pitching changes ? it's hard to keep them all straight.

But we have a Game 7 mostly because of Cardinals third baseman David Freese, the hometown kid whose night mirrored the expansive range of emotions flowing through Game 6 on both sides.

Out of the six-hole in the Cardinals lineup, Freese has tied a record for the most RBI in a postseason with 19. They don't get any more clutch than his three RBIs in Game 6.

A leadoff blast over the center-field wall off Mark Lowe ended a mind-blowing 10-9 Cardinals victory in 11 innings that Freese himself extended two innings earlier with a two-out, two-strike, two-run, opposite-field triple off the right-field wall against Rangers closer Neftali Feliz.

Who does that ? not once, but twice?

"It's all about knowing that this is the same game as when you're 6 years old,'' Freese said. "It's just elevated on a stage, and everyone is watching. You have to keep reminding yourself you have a job to do, and you try to execute. Sometimes you don't, and sometimes you do.''

Two times, Freese did. He smashed a full-count change-up off Lowe, then watched the home run bounce onto the grass berm in center field, and "the usher trying to keep everybody off the grass, but that obviously didn't work.''

And the triple off Feliz to erase a 7-5 deficit? It came on a fastball ? the same pitch he had swung through previously.

"That's a home run in Texas for sure, and in 99 percent of the ballparks, that's a walk-off,'' Cardinals outfielder Lance Berkman said. "(Freese) just went out and did it later.''

Berkman played no small part in things. His two-run homer gave St. Louis a 2-1 lead in the first inning, he scored three other runs, and with two outs and two strikes in the bottom of the 10th, Berkman flared a single to center for an RBI single that tied the game at nine ? and made the Cardinals the first team in World Series history to tie games with two-run rallies in both the ninth and 10th innings.

"I actually felt pretty good about it because I figured I was in a no-lose situation,'' Berkman said. "If you don't come through, it's over with, and they might talk about it for a couple days.

"If you come through, it's the greatest, and plus you've built a little bank account of being able to come through, so that if I don't come through tomorrow, I can be like, 'well, I came through in Game 6, what do you want from me?''

What everybody wants is this series to keep going. Can we extend it to a best-of-nine by any chance? We'll have to settle for the 37th time ? and the first since 2002 ? the series has gone seven games.

In case you're wondering, the home team has won only 19 of the previous 36 Game 7s. But holding up this series to past results and conventional wisdom is folly. This one has been uniquely bizarre.

Freese dropped a routine popup in the top of the fifth inning, and that runner ended up scoring. "I felt like I was part of a circus out there,'' he said. But he ended the night a hero.

Think about it: Josh Hamilton hit a dramatic two-run homer in the top of the 10th that you thought would be the game-winner ? and how great of a comeback story would that have been. But no.

And how about the back-to-back blasts by Adrian Beltre and Nelson Cruz in the seventh that broke a 5-5 tie? Just long footnotes now.

The Cardinals committed three errors ? their most in a series game since 1943. The Rangers made two of their own, bringing their series total to eight.

That's nothing compared to the pitching changes ? 71 in this postseason by the Cardinals and 65 by the Rangers ? the two highest number of changes by teams in postseason history.

La Russa made so many moves in Game 6, he ran out of position players in the 10th inning, but it didn't hurt him. He had starting pitcher Kyle Lohse pinch hit and execute a crucial sacrifice bunt that advanced runners to second and third.

Who pitches tonight? La Russa wasn't giving away whether he'll send ace Chris Carpenter back out there on three days rest, but it's being reported that he will.

Expect that report to be true, even if the Cardinals ace only has a few innings in him, as this will be a Johnny Wholestaff game ? all arms ready ? if there ever was one. The Rangers will start Matt Harrison, and ran out eight pitchers in Game 6, including Derek Holland for two innings.

Position players on both sides are hurting: Hamilton (sports hernia) and Mike Napoli (rolled ankle) will be in the lineup, while Cruz is questionable after straining a groin muscle and leaving Game 6. St. Louis' Matt Holliday severely bruised a finger as he got picked off third base in an inexcusable sixth-inning mistake.

And if you don't think the Rangers can recover from such a crushing defeat, remember this: It's been that way this entire series. After a 2-1 loss in Game 2, St. Louis went to Arlington and laid a 16-7 whooping on Texas. The Rangers turned it around with a 4-0 win the next night behind Holland. And the Cardinals Game 6 win came after La Russa's bullpen-phone gaffes and Albert Pujols' botched hit-and-run call.

It all will be over sometime late Friday ? we think. But as Berkman warned:

"By the way, when you're a little kid, and you're out there (in your backyard, imagining being a World Series hero), you don't have a bunch of reporters and fans ready to call you a choking dog if you don't come through.

"So when you're a kid, you don't realize what a big moment this is. I'm just going to caution all little kids out there, be careful what you wish for.''

? 2011 NBC Sports.com? Reprints

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More news
How do you bounce back from this?

HBT: Sure, the Rangers are devastated after a dramatic Game 6 loss. But their ability to bounce back for tonight's Game 7 will have more to do with available players and execution than emotion.

HBT: Eventually, Game 6 was a thing of beauty

HBT: The final three innings of Game 6 were as exciting as can be. The first eight, well, they were rather iffy. But here we are, after a 10-9 Cardinals victory over the Rangers, a Game 7 left to decide who will be crowned champion.

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/45072800/ns/sports-baseball/

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Madoff: Has remorse, doesn't contemplate suicide (AP)

NEW YORK ? Disgraced financier Bernie Madoff has told an interviewer he has terrible remorse and horrible nightmares over his epic fraud, but also said he feels happier in prison than he's felt in 20 years.

Barbara Walters told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Thursday that she interviewed Madoff for two hours at the prison in Butner, N.C., where he's serving a 150-year sentence. No cameras were allowed in the prison.

Walters said Madoff told her he thought about suicide before being sent to prison. But since he's been there, he no longer thinks about it.

His comments come ahead of his wife's appearance Sunday's edition of CBS' "60 Minutes." Ruth Madoff said in excerpts that they tried to kill themselves after he admitted stealing billions of dollars in the largest Ponzi scheme in history.

Walters quoted Madoff as saying: "I feel safer here (in prison) than outside. I have people to talk to, no decisions to make. I know I will die in prison. I lived the last 20 years of my life in fear. Now, I have no fear because I'm no longer in control."

She also said he told her he understands why his one-time clients hate him, and that the average person thinks he "robbed widows and orphans." But he also told her, "I made wealthy people wealthier."

Ruth Madoff's appearance on "60 Minutes" will be her first interview since her husband's December 2008 arrest. She says they had been receiving hate mail and "terrible phone calls" and were distraught.

"I don't know whose idea it was, but we decided to kill ourselves because it was so horrendous what was happening," she says in the interview, according to excerpts released by CBS.

She says it was Christmas Eve, which added to their depression, and she decided: "I just can't go on anymore."

She says the couple took "a bunch of pills" including the insomnia prescription medication Ambien, but they both woke up the next day. She says the decision was "very impulsive" and she's glad they didn't die.

The couple's son Andrew Madoff also will talk about his experience.

Another son, Mark Madoff, hanged himself by a dog leash last year on the anniversary of his father's arrest. Like his parents, he had swallowed a batch of sleeping pills in a failed suicide attempt 14 months earlier, according to his widow's new book, "The End of Normal: A Wife's Anguish, A Widow's New Life."

Bernie Madoff was arrested on Dec. 11, 2008, the morning after his sons notified authorities through an attorney that he had confessed to them that his investment business was a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme. He admitted cheating thousands of investors. He pleaded guilty to fraud charges.

Madoff, who's in his 70s, ran his scheme for at least two decades, using his investment advisory service to cheat individuals, charities, celebrities and institutional investors.

An investigation found Madoff never made any investments, instead using the money from new investors to pay returns to existing clients ? and to finance a lavish lifestyle for his family. Losses have been estimated at around $20 billion, making it the biggest investment fraud in U.S. history.

___

Online:

http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/60minutes/main3415.shtml

http://abcnews.go.com/watch/good-morning-america/SH5587637

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tv/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111027/ap_en_tv/us_people_madoff

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Officials: Twin bombs kill 18 in Baghdad (AP)

BAGHDAD ? A twin bombing killed 18 people Thursday in a Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad ? the deadliest attack to rock Iraq since President Barack Obama declared the full withdrawal of U.S. forces at the end of the year.

Two police officials said the first explosion, at a music store shortly after 7 p.m., killed two people. The second bomb struck four minutes later, as rescue workers and others rushed to the scene, the officials said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Thirty-six people were wounded in the attack, according to a medic at Imam Hussein hospital.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters.

Many Iraqis fear violence will increase when the U.S. troops leave the country, and insurgents have for months sought to exploit continued instability and security gaps that Iraqi forces have been unable to close.

"I stood outside my shop and saw burning cars and dead bodies on the ground," said Ahmed Jalil, 27, who owns a grocery near the attack site in Ur, a Shiite neighborhood in northeast Baghdad. "The situation was miserable, and I could see wounded people being loaded on police pickups," he said.

"Today's attack proves that the government's allegations that the security is under control are nothing but baseless allegations and that the tens of checkpoints scattered all over the capital are useless and a waste of resources," Jalil said.

Violence has dropped dramatically across Iraq since just a few years ago, when sectarian violence brought the nation to the brink of civil war. But deadly bombings and attacks still happen nearly every day, although death tolls are usually relatively low.

American troops have all but ended street patrols in Iraq ? a stark turnabout to 2006 and 2007, when widespread sectarian violence required their participation at the heart of the battle.

Iraqi security forces still rely heavily on the American military for intelligence, air support and surveillance. Also, U.S. special forces continue to assist Iraqis in targeting insurgents and other extremist groups.

There are currently 39,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. The Dec. 31 deadline is part of a 2008 security agreement between Baghdad and Washington that was negotiated by the administration of then-President George W. Bush, a Republican.

Obama, a Democrat, pledged to end the war on time shortly after he took office in 2009. But over the last year, his administration considered leaving thousands of troops in Iraq beyond 2011 to help maintain security and curb growing Iranian political influence in Baghdad.

Iraqi and U.S. officials failed to come up with an agreement to protect the remaining American military force from legal prosecution ? a deal-breaker for Washington.

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is the largest American diplomatic mission in the world, and it has hired more than 700 contractors to continue training Iraqi security forces. Also, an estimated 5,000 private security contractors will be brought in to protect the embassy and U.S. diplomatic posts around Iraq.

Still, experts note, that falls far short of some proposals floated by the Pentagon that called for as many as 16,000 U.S. troops to stay in Iraq beyond the December deadline.

Anthony Cordesman, an Iraq expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the White House had little choice but to withdraw the troops if the Iraqi government refused to meet their conditions.

However, Cordesman said, "There also is little doubt that the withdrawal of all combat forces from Iraq by the end of 2011 will increase the risk of failure."

___

Associated Press Writer Lara Jakes contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iraq/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111027/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq

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