News from Astia

Message from the CEO

Data is queen!

Sharon Vosmek
CEO Astia

Last month's CEO letter was the first in three-part series articulating our path to increasing our impact. This month, I want to highlight the work of our team, which you may never see or directly experience, but which will certainly benefit the entire community and increase our impact.

I call it our BIG DATA play.

As you know - Astia is a community, Astia is you! But what do we know about the many "you's" who make up Astia? Not enough! So, this year we have launched an effort to map this, our greatest asset, the Astia community.

What has made this possible?

Behind the scenes, Patty Breslin the Astia VP Finance & Operations has been building out our processes and our CRM tool, which is generously donated by Salesforce. To aid in this work, Catherine Berman, Sr. VP of Entrepreneur Programs mapped the many constituents that comprise the community - from entrepreneurs to investors, from sponsors to entrepreneurial alliances, from media to partner organizations. And to get it all ready to roll, Carolyn Beaty has been trying things out, keeping that which works and tweaking that which does not. This was a real team effort.

And now, we are ready and we want to ensure that we get you involved in the Astia community in the most thoughtful and engaging way. Here is what you can do to enable our work. Tell us about yourself - the more the better - using this link:

http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22FGA2FF5CE?astiavip=0.

The survey it takes you to should take about 5-10 minutes. The more detail you are able to provide, the better we can map you to the opportunities in the community - and the better we can map you to each other.

Because we know, at the end of the day, this is a business of relationships. And where we can provide those key connections that result in enduring business relationships, we will have done our job well and created a community rich with an ability to deliver impact! Impact for the individual, impact for the companies in our community, and ultimately, impact for the ecosystem we thrive within.

I look forward to sharing more next month. Until then...

Cheers,

Sharon Vosmek

Astia Client News

Exciting News for Astia Company Ballooning Nest Eggs

Ballooning Nest Eggs recently did a soft launch of their site. This represents the first phase of more to come in the months ahead. The current site seeks to disrupt the notion that building youngsters' nest eggs is strictly a close family affair and connecting kids to their money - and broader economic and global world - is more akin to homework than play time. It's full of practical yet "out of the nest" ideas to grow youngsters' wealth and encourage them to dive into investing, entrepreneurship, charitable giving and their broader economic world.

Radish Systems Presenting at Frost & Sullivan Contact Show

Radish Systems has announced a new partnership with Strategic Products and Services and will be demonstrating their mobile-visual communications product, ChoiceView, at the upcoming Frost & Sullivan Customer Contact show and American Teleservices Association (ATA) Expo, April 15 - 18, 2012. Congratulations Radish team!

Eve Medical Featured in Bio Business

Astia portfolio company Eve Medical was featured this month in BioBusiness Magazine's cover story, "On Their Own Terms: Under-represented at the executive level, women in biotech are starting their own companies and creating their own destinites". CEO Jessica Ching discusses how the company started, and lessons learned on investment and advisors.

Read the full story here.

Donation Pay closes Seed Round

Congratulations goes out to the Donation Pay duo - AJ Strosahl and Noah Sochet for officially closing their seed round in Q1. This funding was secured through private investors along with additional funding from the previous investors.

GenGreen Founder Now at Colorado State University's Institute for Entrepreneurship

Charisse MacCauliffe, former CEO and Founder of GenGreen and Astia Portfolio Company 2009, was named Managing Director at Colorado State University's College of Buisness Institute for Entrepreneurship. Please congratulate Charisse on this exceptional position. Entrepreneurship is alive and well at Colorado State's School of Business. Read the full story here.

Astia Events

We Own It Summit Update

Preparation for the We Own It Summit, scheduled for June 28-29 in New York City, is underway and will be held at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Industry leaders have agreed to speak on 12 panels that are designed to expose the myths and explore the realities of women's entrepreneurship and move forward to a decade that will include many more women as founders and CEOs of high growth firms.

This summer marks the third successful year in furthering the summit's overarching ten year goals that include increasing the number of women investors, high growth entrepreneurs, women on private and public boards and the likelihood of success of businesses during the growth stage. A big round of applause goes out to the over 70 collaborating organizations that have invited outstanding women to participate and providing thought leadership around the event. If you are a leader of an organization who would like to be involved in this year's Summit, please contact speaker@weownitsummit.com or go to the We Own It website - WeOwnItSummit.org.

Sponsors and Partnerships

Celebrating a decade of support with Fenwick & West and Silicon Valley Bank!

Astia is honored by the continuous support of both Fenwick & West and Silicon Valley Bank. We would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their commitment to propelling women innovators and leaders to success through Astia.

"Silicon Valley Bank's 10 years of continuous support of Astia, demonstrates our shared commitment to see high-growth, innovative companies succeed and to ensure that women entrepreneurs are participating on par with their talent. Partnering with Astia ensures that SVB is affecting innovation and the economy and we look forward to working with Astia during our 10th year of sponsorship."

-Silicon Valley Bank

"Congratulations Astia on 10 years of supporting women's leadership in high-growth entrepreneurship! Fenwick & West has been a proud partner from the organization's inception to today's tremendous success supporting women-led startups. By providing access to the networks and expertise needed for young technology companies to succeed, together we are supporting innovation and economic growth in the Silicon Valley and beyond."

-Fenwick & West LLP

SVB Financial Releases Halo Report

Astia sponsor Silicon Valley Bank, alongside its partners The Angel Resource Institute and CB Insights, announced in March the findings from the first Halo Report, a collaborative effort to raise awareness of early stage investment activities by angel investment groups. The research series highlights angel investment activity and trends in North America and provides much sought after data that has not been previously available to entrepreneurs or early stage investors.

Thank you to ideaSpace and PricewaterhouseCoopers!

A warm thank you goes to Astia sponsors ideaSpace Enterprise Accelerator and PricewaterhouseCoopers for hosting the Astia Global Entrepreneur Programme and Networking Reception respectively, in Cambridge during March. Thank you for supporting Astia!

Astia Partners with CircleUp

Astia is pleased to announce a partnership with CircleUp, an equity-based crowdfunding platform focused on established high-growth consumer and retail companies. CircleUp has great mission alignment with Astia in providing advising, resources and funding sources in the consumer and retail markets.

Ryan Caldbeck and Rory Eakin, the co-founders, have extensive expertise in consumer and retail industries, which will help bolster our consumer practice. The two organizations will work together in referring companies to one another as well as sharing advising resources and access to funding. Learn more about them in this Venture Beat article.

CircleUp (http://circleup.com/) is an investment platform that connects individual investors with growing private companies. It features a curated list of national high-growth U.S. small consumer brands. All companies have a tangible product or retail outlet that you can touch, taste, use, or visit. Using tools provided by the platform, investors review companies of interest, ask questions of the management team and complete their investment - all on CircleUp.

Notable Statistics

The Center for Venture Research releases the 2011 Angel Report

The full year 2011 Angel Report was released this month by the Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire. Below are some of the key statistics in the report.

Total investment $ up 12% vs. 2010
Total number of investments up 7% vs. 2010
Total number of active investors up 20% vs. 2010
Angel investment in seed and start-up up significantly - 42% of total investment in 2011 vs. 31% in 2010
Women angels represent 12% of all angels
Women entrepreneurs seeking angel capital represent 12% of all entrepreneurs seeking angel capital

Read the full report here