CDFA Upcoming Events

Michelle Stuckey, Manager, Business Finance with the St. Louis Business Development Corporation discusses the agency's revolving loan fund financing program.

Devon Sauzek's presentation about the Oklahoma Capital Investment Board (OCIB) provides an overview of the venture capital industry, the agency's structure, use of tax credits and its mission. The presentation further illustrates the OCIB model.

The Georgia Department of Community Affairs produced this resource to highlight the development financing programs available including federal, state and local offerings. The document discusses a myriad of financing programs including small business financing, education, USDA, and IDBs among many others.

The Urban Institute and the Kaufmann Foundation teamed up to look at access to capital programs and funding options for women entrepreneurs wishing to start or expand their business, as this segment has grown dramatically over the past decade. These programs cover the spectrum from microenterprise to venture capital funds and serve highly diverse populations. Thirteen "best practice" programs and three "promising practices" are profiled in this report.

As American Idol has grown in popularity it has also transformed some of the fabric of the American culture. This report by the Kauffman Foundation, looks at the old method of venture capital and the new era of venture capital that involves early state venture and the rise of angel investing for early stage entrepreneurship.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City examined the technological innovation and its influence on economic growth. While it's widely accepted that innovation and entrepreneurship is a key element in economic success, many rural communities feel this form of development with outside of their grasp. This report examines how rural communities can capitalize on entrepreneurial investments within their reach.

Rick Palank from the St. Louis County Economic Council presented at the Georgia Institute of Technology's 40th Annual Economic Development Course on the basics of development finance. This presentation highlights many areas of economic development finance including various bond financing tools, tax increment finance, tax credits, small business and entrepreneurial finance options.

Via their investment decisions, venture capitalists (VCs) regularly “vote” on the quality of entrepreneurs and their ideas. While VCs do receive scrutiny from the investors, they rarely get rated by entrepreneurs. A new website, thefunded.com, is seeking to change that. The site, which refuses to disclose its owners or operators, seeks to serve as a forum for discussions about the best funding sources for new and emerging businesses. In addition to providing information and other resource guides, the site also operates like a customer ranking system found at sites like eBay and Amazon.com. The site recently listed the top five VC firms for entrepreneurs. They were: InterWest Partners, Clearstone Venture Partners, First Round Capital, Sequoia Partners, and Trinity Ventures.

The NVCA report looks at the impact of venture capital on the economy.

Since many regions of the U.S. have little access to private venture capital, community development venture capital has grown in popularity. This report looks at the history and the current state of the community development venture capital (CDVC) industry, as well as geographic distribution of CDVC, the source for CDVC and investment structure. Also included, is information about the industry, how the CDVCs function and recent trends.

The purpose of this report was to examine innovative institutions that are making venture capital investments in rural places across the country and develop lessons learned from these institutions that might be applied in other areas. This paper summarizes the lessons learned from in-depth case studies of 23 nontraditional venture capital institutions.

This article looks at the growth in venture capital financing that occurred in 2006. Venture capitalists invested $25.5 billion in 3,416 deals in 2006, realizing a 10 percent increase in deal volume and a 12 percent increase in dollar value. The year saw significant growth in the life sciences sector, with biotech and medical device investing both reaching record high levels.

The article argues the importance of entrepreneurship and the important role it plays in economic development. Entrepreneurs have a difficult time securing venture capital, particularly rural entrepreneurs. Rural entrepreneurs face several obstacles in securing venture funding, but rural areas need to be fertile ground for stimulating entrepreneurial development.

Rural entrepreneurs are at a disadvantage when seeking venture capital, because typical venture firms tend to seek investments in higher conglomerated areas. The article looks and the Community Development Venture Capital (CDVC) as a form of venture capital that has grown in popularity in rural communities. CDVC provides both equity and near-equity investments in small business. The program works by examining a company’s potential job growth for low- and moderate- income individuals when deciding to invest. The report explains in details the CDVC model, traditional sources of CDVC capital and new sources for CDVC funding.

This paper provides an overview of programs selected to help define the important design parameters for effective state programs. Much of the information is based on the reported experiences of National Association of State Venture Funds (NASVF) members. Looking at current and former state programs, a wide range of experimentation is evident. The successes and failures can guide future program design to meet the various state and regional capital needs across the nation.

The National Association of Seed and Venture Funds (NASVF) surveyed every state in the nation to identify state venture capital programs, including direct investments by the states, tax incentives for others to invest, and all other programs. This is the first phase of the study. In the next phase, NASVF will study the financial and economic returns of the state programs. Forty-four states participated in the study and 151 different programs were reported.

Courtesy of the PricewaterhouseCoopers/Thomson Venture Economics/National Venture Capital Association Money Tree, here are the state-by-state statistics on venture capital distribution, not only for 2004, but for the ten years period dating back to the creation of the 'Money Tree'.

NASVF presents state-by-state distributions of reported venture capital investments in 2005, compared to 2004.

Daniel Sandler, Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Western Ontario and a senior research fellow on Taxation, Law and Policy Research authored this article for use at a symposium to be held in May to examine best practices for the states in establishing and operating state sponsored venture capital programs.