Venture debt: The new trend in venture capital?

More venture-backed companies looking to venture debt to extend 'Cash runway'

 

Boston Business Journal by Taryn Plumb, Special to the Journal

Friday, July 27, 2012

Jan Haas of NXT Capital Venture Finance.

As a means to access capital without diluting equity or further burdening investors, more local venture-backed companies are turning to — or at least exploring — the option of venture debt.
“It’s a very practical and pragmatic use of debt,” said Gerald Michaud, president of Connecticut-based Horizon Technology Finance Corp., which has provided upwards of $850 million in venture loan commitments to more than 130 companies across the country since 2004. “It is becoming a more accepted tool in the toolbox of venture capitalists.”
How it works: instead of giving up equity, startups and growth companies receive relatively short-term loans to fund capital expenses and working capital.
It’s a concept that’s been around for decades, but is now starting to gain major traction, according to the industry, due to a softer market for mergers and acquisitions, a limited IPO appetite and reduced venture capital supply. Also, noted Michaud, it’s a quicker way to access capital without further diluting equity, but while still maintaining the flexibility of equity.
Among the local venture-backed companies that have recently received venture debt include Open Mile, Boston-based online freight brokerage service, which closed on a $3 million loan from NXT Capital Venture Finance in March, and digital commerce service company Optaros of Boston, which closed on a $2.5 million loan from Horizon the same month.
Loans are used to fund a variety of growth initiatives, according to Jan Haas, senior managing director of NXT Capital Venture Finance, which has six employees based in its Wakefield office. Those initiatives can include making acquisitions, providing liquidity to older investors or investing in sales and marketing, product development, equipment or facilities, Haas said. For early-stage companies, he said, it’s essentially a way to extend the “cash runway” to get over the milestones to success.
Ultimately, terms vary based on the company — but generally range from 24 to 48 months, according to Horizon and NXT. And the dollar amount of the investments cover just as wide a swath: anywhere from $1 million or $2 million to $20 million to $25 million per deal, the firms said. Interest rates, similarly, vary based on risk and valuation, fall between 9 and 13 percent, and often provide warrants to the lender, or the right to buy stock in the company at a certain price.
Horizon, which focuses on emerging technologies, cleantech industries, life sciences, and health care information and services, has provided $180 million in the form of 32 loans to companies throughout Massachusetts and New Hampshire to date.
NXT, which launched in October in Massachusetts with the merger of NXT Capital and Velocity Financial Group, has a goal to invest between $100 million and $200 million a year in later-stage companies in technology and life sciences, according to Haas.
“We’re investing based on our belief that companies have intrinsic value that supports our debt,” he said. “It’s largely predicated on who the investors are, who the entrepreneurs are, and do we believe in the market opportunity.”

Original story link here.

Al fresco, anyone?

Outdoor dining flourishes in Boston’s western suburbs 

By Taryn Plumb |  Globe Correspondent

July 19, 2012

It was a hot afternoon, but there was plenty of shade and a breeze as Claude French sat in front of Concord’s Colonial Inn for lunch.

The small granite table he shared with his wife, Doreen,  was scattered with the remains of their meal — a half-eaten salad, crumbs from a salmon burger, slices of corn bread, a few neglected fries, perspiring water glasses.

“It’s more open, rather than being confined inside,” French, a retiree from Bedford,  said of eating porch-side. “It’s more festive. It’s summer, you’re with other people, it’s something enjoyable.”

There’s just something about eating outside — the fresh air, the breeze, the smells, the sounds — that somehow makes meals that much more enjoyable, the food that much tastier.

But it’s not an experience that needs to be confined to your own backyard or side patio. Even in the swirling hurly-burly of Boston’s western suburbs, you can find many tucked-away oases for open-air eating.

“You forget the fact that you are sitting in MetroWest,” said Tom Peretzian,  the bar manager at Allora Ristorante in Marlborough, which has a deck overlooking Lake Williams  that can accommodate more than 100 diners.  “Everybody just enjoys being out there.”

Parisian, Mediterranean, Asian, or Italian settings, garden-like patios, wrap-around decks, simple sidewalk seating — pick your vibe.

Popular area choices include Spiga Ristorante Italiano  in Needham,  with a patio swathed in shrubbery and hidden away beyond the rush of Interstate 95’s hotels, businesses, and office parks, and the French restaurant Petit Robert Bistro  on the other side of the whooshing highway; the South American La Casa De Pedro  in Watertown,  with its coconut-laden palm tree and a waterfall nearby; Singh’s Cafe  in Wellesley,  with Hindu statues overlooking patrons; Bullfinchs in Sudbury;  il Casale in Belmont;  Tavolino in Westborough;  and Taberna de Haro in Brookline. 

“It is always nice to have the option to sit outside,” said Kathy Sidell,  owner of the Met Restaurant Group,  which operates the Met Bar and Grill in Natick, among other establishments.  The restaurant offers an 1,100-square-foot patio with clay pots, evergreens, and miniature Japanese maple trees, and can fit about 60 to 70 people.

“With the climate cold nine months out of the year, it’s good to take advantage of nice weather,” said Sidell. “We wanted to create a natural setting that felt like a garden.”

Other restaurateurs, meanwhile, take advantage of the natural scenery and energy of their surroundings.

The Fireplace in Brookline,  for instance, has a simple sidewalk patio with tables, umbrellas, and flowers facing looking out on Washington Square with its Victorian clock, boutiques, and businesses.

“You get the relaxing urban bustle that is more subdued than a New York sidewalk, but more lively than an enclosed terrace. It’s very much alive with pedestrians and shoppers,” said chef and owner Jim Solomon. “Washington Square is kind of known as the ‘Paris of Brookline,’ ” he said.

And offering outdoor dining helps keep keeps that reputation alive. “It creates a more lively streetscape,’’ he said, “and more foot traffic to support the local neighborhood shops.”

Meanwhile, in the more bucolic setting of Concord, the Colonial Inn accents its historical aspect. A half-covered porch with granite tables and wrought-iron chairs wraps around the front of the nearly 300-year-old  building, which features columns, dormers, black shutters, red doors, and taupe facade.

On a recent weekday afternoon, more than a dozen diners — including the Frenches — were gathered there despite the nearly 90-degree heat; they sat in the shade of umbrellas, watched the traffic rumbling by Monument Square,  and admired the surrounding rhododendrons, colorful boxed flowers, and oak trees.

“It’s such a beautiful location,” said Alexandra Lorenzano, the inn’s director of food and beverage, noting that people can “hide” on the porch but, at the same time, still be part of the action in the center of town. “We want people to feel like they’re in an oasis.”

The inn introduced the porch for dining just four years ago, she said, and it’s since grown to accommodate 70. 

“There was such a high demand for it,” she said, describing how guests and diners have always gathered on the porch to take in July Fourth events or parades, or to simply people-watch. “People just love to be outside.”

Solomon, at the Fireplace in Brookline, agreed it’s just that simple.

“After braving frequent cold winters, it’s just really nice to be able to sit out in shorts and enjoy a cool summer evening, or have brunch outside on a sunny day,” he said.

“Being a lifelong New Englander, I enjoy taking advantage of the nice weather whenever we have it.”

© 2012 The New York Times Company

An ancient art that still resonates

Michael LaFosse brings origami to Newbury 

By Taryn Plumb |  Globe Correspondent

July 12, 2012

For a little more than an hour, hand-held video games, cellphones, and tablet computers were forgotten, text messages and e-mails ignored, and a group spanning the age spectrum from 8 to 85 was enraptured by the simplest of human-made materials: paper.
They folded, they tucked, they creased, folded and tucked, and folded again.
And by the end? They came away with an assembly of colorful wreaths, miniature boats and animals, and even tiny pieces of apparel.
“I think this is my favorite activity so far in my life,” Byfield 10-year-old Sam Orender said of origami, after taking part in a recent workshop on the ancient practice led by Michael LaFosse at the Newbury Public Library.
It’s an art of contradiction — plain, simple paper transformed into sophisticated, artistic, and complex designs — that has entranced people for millenniums. And still today, with the seemingly never-ending digital onslaught, people (including the youngest generation who have grown up with gadgets like appendages) continue to be drawn to origami, often because of its pure and uncomplicated nature.
“I like how it’s just folding,” 8-year-old Tori Orender said after the Newbury library event, as she fiddled with one of her creations. “You don’t have to use other materials — all you have to use is paper.”
Although there is no statistical evidence, nimble-fingered masters like LaFosse indicate that the centuries-old craft is enjoying a renaissance. Believed to have evolved in China in the first century A.D. following the invention of paper, origami involves making a series of folds, typically with just one single piece of paper, without using any type of cutting, adhesives, or tape.
“Origami is really coming into its own, it’s entering its golden age,” said LaFosse, a biologist by training who runs the Haverhill-based Origamido Studio with Richard Alexander.
He pointed to the boom in adult and children’s manuals and books (he and Alexander have written roughly 70 themselves); online forums where enthusiasts can share images, diagrams, and videos; dozens of user groups across the country; and regular conventions, including one put on annually by OrigamiUSA in New York City and another this August in Columbus, Ohio. Perhaps most of all, there has been been more of an acceptance of origami in the art world, with exhibits at the Louvre in Paris, more private collectors, and the constant creation of new forms, figures, and designs.
“It’s just exploding,” said LaFosse. “Never before have we had so many people inventing origami at such a high level.”
That includes his own intricate and artful creations. The 55-year-old estimated that he has come up with between 5,000 and 6,000 designs in his roughly 50 years working at the craft. But, as he noted humbly, “only a fraction of them are really worthy.”
Some of his pieces include life-sized praying mantises; hummingbirds taking sips from flowers; soaring bats; swimming koi; blooming orchids; and an F-14 fighter jet that actually flies. One of his particular favorites is a miniature pig named Wilbur that, as he put it, “looks like he’s happily trotting along.”
Careful shaping and handmade paper give his works a feeling of texture and movement — as if they are real creatures, merely frozen in pose.
LaFosse started inventing designs, he said, when he was a child because he simply couldn’t find anything more than very basic diagrams in books. Later, he took inspiration from Akira Yoshizawa, considered the grandmaster of modern origami (he died in 2005, at age 94), and by age 16 he was making his own paper so he could get the “perfect skin” for each model.
Then in 1996, he and Alexander founded Origamido (translating to “the way of folded paper”), where the pair create designs, teach origami, and make their own paper, which is used by people all over the world. Their works have been exhibited at the Louvre, as well as the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens in Florida, and locally at the Peabody Essex Museum.
Much like any art form, the pieces aren’t just dashed off with a few folds here and some tucks there. For example, it took LaFosse 50 hours with a 6-foot-square sheet of paper to create a miniature, textured, lifelike alligator. (Likewise, he treats his pieces like priceless works, handling them delicately and with latex gloves.)
Similarly, it is not just about sitting in the studio and contemplating — for Wilbur he studied, sketched, watched, and photographed real pigs, to ensure that he captured them just right. And for the Florida exhibit, he spent numerous hours in the Everglades studying endangered species.
Of course, the works created at the Newbury event in June were not quite so elaborate or time-intensive, but the art drew people in nonetheless. A group of about 50 children and adults arrived to find tables stacked with different colors and sizes of square paper. After LaFosse demonstrated, little nail-polished fingers and Band-Aid-covered elbows set to work, sparkly flip-flops tapping and shiny headband-covered heads bent in concentration.
Folding, unfolding, tucking, creating flaps, triangles, diamonds, and flipping sheets over and upside-down, they each created multicolored wreaths (highlighter pink, blue, reddish-orange) from eight pieces of Post-it sized paper; red, white, and blue sailboats that propped up on their own and floated across tables with heavy, puff-cheeked blows; penguins; and “Aloha” shirts.
A soft-spoken, patient teacher, LaFosse assuaged moments of frustration with comments like, “nobody makes these things well in the beginning,” and told the group that, to do origami at home, they do not have to buy fancy paper from the art store — they can use anything.
“You’re folding, and all of a sudden, you see this creation,” said Bonnie Durante of Byfield, who participated with her 13-year-old son, Michael, and 10-year old daughter, Bonnie Rose. “It’s nice to have them using their gross motor skills, creating something, as opposed to getting lost on the computer.”
LaFosse, for his part, noted that origami is a lifelong learning process that is “difficult, but rewarding,” and an “enjoyable challenge.”
Ultimately, it is so much more than folding paper, he said, it is engineering, technique, and skill. And it never ceases to captivate.
“As soon as you have them asking “How did they do that?,” he said, “you’ve got ‘em.”

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  Bill Greene/Globe Staff

  An origami pig by Michael LaFosse was on display at the Newbury Town Library.
  
  
  
  

  
  
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  Bill Greene/Globe Staff

  LaFosse teaches a children's program at the Newbury Town Library.

View more pics here.

Copyright 2012 The New York Times Company

Going south of town? Check out these beaches

Five great places to cool down

 

(Debee Tlumacki for the Boston Globe/file)

By Taryn Plumb / Globe Correspondent / July 5, 2012 

New England weather is moody and unpredictable, inspiring worn-out cliches (don’t worry, we won’t repeat them here), and playing coquettish games with meteorologists.

This year, though, there was absolutely no doubt about it: On the Solstice, right on time, summer made an indisputable and diva-like entrance, strangling the region in oppressive heat that neared 100 degrees.

But if you haven’t made your way to the beach just yet, you’re probably going to want to be water-side at some point between now and when the young ones go back to school. And south of Boston, you’ve got lots of options -- almost too many -- from salty escapes to freshwater getaways.

Can’t decide? Here’s a variety of spots to cool off, water down, or do some serious basking.

The picturesque: Fire Station Beach, Quincy

This wide strip of sand, nestled between the Fore River and Rock Island Cove, is what its owner the Quincy Housing Authority calls “little-known” and a “hidden environmental jewel.” Follow a new boardwalk over dunes with wispy grass down to the wide expanse of sand, where you can go for a stroll, collect shells, and bird watch — visitors have reported herons, warblers, and egrets, among many others — and, of course, swim. Or just enjoy the extensive view — of Houghs Neck with its clutter of houses; and farther out, Hingham Bay and its islands; Kings Cove across the way; the Fore River; bits of the Boston skyline; and the procession of barges and yachts steaming by on the waves. This idyllic, tucked-away beach is off Doane Street, and gets its name from the Germantown fire station you pass by to get to it.

If you have little ones, the Snug Harbor Playground, with fields, basketball courts, and “tot-lots” is nearby (off Palmer Street).

But with all the options here, you shouldn’t have a problem keeping everybody in your group (whatever age) occupied.

THE social spot: Hingham Bathing Beach

No surprise given its name, this charming sandy beach off Otis Street (Route 3A) is a local favorite for swimming (and, perhaps even more so, for socializing).

The fluctuating high tides dictate the peak times for a dip, so — unless of course you already keep close track — you’ll want to check first before you head out, beach blanket and cooler in-hand. (You can find a convenient tide chart here: boatma.com/tides/Boston-Harbor.html.)

It has all amenities you’ll want for a long day out — parking, lifeguards, a bathhouse -- and a good dose of friendliness, to boot. Stick around long enough, and you might be greeted by a group of regulars who fittingly call themselves “beach bums.” (Or seek them out and introduce yourself.)

And when you’re not enjoying the cool salty waters? Simply take in the view of the islands and the opposite shoreline, or the fleet of anchored sailboats bobbing in the waves nearby. Or, since the beach is swathed in ample green space, there’s plenty of room to play ball, throw Frisbees, or picnic in the grass. There’s also a popular farmer’s market, which runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays through Nov. 17, according to its website.

The classic: Onset Beach in Wareham

It’s just about the closest you can get to the Cape without actually making the dreaded trip over the Bourne or Sagamore bridges. This wide swath of beach is snug in the Onset section on the tip of Wareham, just before the Cape begins to stretch out its flexed bicep. A beloved spot for sunbathers, swimmers, and sandcastle-makers who want a traditional beach, but without the teeming crowds.

And if you’ve had enough sun for a while, mosey on over to nearby shops and restaurants, including Marc Anthony’s Pizzeria or Kenny’s Salt Water Taffy. If you’re a music fan, meanwhile, you definitely won’t want to miss the celebrated Onset Beach Jazz Festival, held this year on July 21.

But maybe you’re more of a freshwater fish, preferring hidden-away glens to open strips of seashore. Well, we’ve got you covered there, too.

Long Pond, Lakeville and East Freetown

A classic, shallow pond — with plenty of room for recreation. “T”-shaped, 1,721 acres, and straddling both Lakeville and East Freetown, it’s one of the largest natural ponds in the state, according to the Division of Fisheries and Wildlife (although its average depth is only about 6 feet).

There’s a town beach nestled on the East Freetown side (off Long Pond Road), and a public boat launch located on the south end of the lake, off Route 18, according to the Long Pond Association, a volunteer group that stewards the water body.

It’s a favorite for fishing, particularly largemouth bass and white and yellow perch, according to the Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. Many cruise along its wide, rippling surface in party boats, sailboats, motorboats, canoes, and kayaks — and there’s ample room for waterskiing, kneeboarding, tubing, or just dropping anchor and going for a dip.

Little Sandy Bottom Pond, Pembroke

Another traditional rural pond, with a small town beach on Woodbine Avenue off Route 27. Lifeguards are on duty from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., according to the town website. As well as swimmers and sun-catchers, it attracts fishermen (and women) looking to snag largemouth bass, yellow perch, and bullhead, according to popular fishing websites. And if you’re up for exploring, you’ll find all manner of flora, fauna, and freshwater creatures along its well-developed banks.

© Copyright 2012 Globe Newspaper Company.

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