Venture Capitalists

When the number of venture-capital-funded companies going public tripled in 2004, some hailed it as the beginning of a tech revival, predicting that the technology and biotech sectors - which Maryland has tagged economic drivers - would again become investor darlings. They were wrong. Initial public offerings of venture-funded companies plummeted 40 percent last year, to 56 from 93 a year earlier, according to data from the National Venture Capital Association and Thomson Venture Economics released yesterday.

Victor Norris is looking for a few good angels to get his dream off the ground.Well-heeled angels.Mr. Norris, the developer of "FogEye," an electronic system that he says improves navigation for airplanes, ships and helicopters in foggy conditions, estimates he needs $6.5 million to get the device into the marketplace. The payoff? A $7 billion world market out there for FogEye, says the Ellicott City resident. But so far the financial muscle needed to get it airborne has eluded him."I just need two or three angels to unite and get behind me and I can make this thing work," says Mr. Norris, who received a $50,000 state loan to help launch his company.

Peter Andrulis Jr., dreams of restoring the reputation, or at least the usefulness, of Thalidomide, the drug that became synonymous with birth defects and gigantic lawsuits when it was given to pregnant women for morning sickness in the late 1950s.He has patented Thalidomide variations and treatments that he believes can treat multiple sclerosis, some complications of AIDS, some forms of cancer and a range of other previously untreatable or hard-to-treat diseases.Now he needs a few tens of millions of dollars for the costly tests that would be required to get Food and Drug Administration approval of each treatment.

Derek Gabbard wasn't dreaming of California when he sought to raise investment capital for his Baltimore-based cybersecurity firm. But the CEO of Lookingglass Cyber Solutions lucked out with a connection to venture capitalists in the state that dwarfs all others in terms of venture capital. With a San Francisco investment firm taking the lead on the investment and a Maryland firm following, Gabbard recently raised $5 million. Such deals, where Mid-Atlantic technology companies straddle both coasts for investors, have been cropping up lately, though the dynamics underlying them vary.

COLLEGE PARK -- In the spring of 1992, Alice Richmond and Ilene Halprin were rarities -- female electrical engineers heading staffs with scores of professionals at established high-tech companies.A year and a half, a lifetime dream, and $75,000 of their families' and friends' money later, they are doubly rare -- female high-tech entrepreneurs about to market a new software package and reach for a piece of the imaging revolution that is dumping the office filing system out of metal cabinets and onto computer disks.

Life Technologies seeks room to growLife Technologies Inc. has begun looking for a way to expand its research and development work along the I-270 corridor in Montgomery and Frederick counties. The company wants to consolidate three offices at Shady Grove industrial park in a new building that would include space to grow.The Gaithersburg company is one of the largest biotechnology companies in the area. It has 500 employees in Maryland, several offices around the world and a 62,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Frederick County.

The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine has changed. It must havehappened sometime during the last year. But most of us didn't notice. I don't remember any dramatic reorganizations or reforms.Then suddenly three weeks ago the venerable Baltimore institution did something which clearly demonstrated that it has quietly but profoundly transformed itself.At first the event didn't look significant. The medical school merely put on a symposium called ''Genes, Drugs and Devices: Investing in Science for Life.

William Lloyd "Little Willie" Adams, who went from being a numbers runner on the streets of Baltimore to the city's first prominent African-American venture capitalist, bankrolling numerous black-owned businesses such as Parks Sausage and Super Pride supermarkets, died Monday from pneumonia at Roland Park Place. He was 97 and had been in declining health in recent years. "Little Willie was an institution in Baltimore. And as far as the black community was concerned, he brought black entrepreneurs into the formerly all-white business community," former Mayor Thomas J. D'Alesandro III said Tuesday.

How do the prospects look for environmental businesses in the next few years? If you listen to the companies themselves you'd get a resounding chorus of rapid growth and expanding markets. And reassurance comes from the vote of confidence of those whose job it is to put their money where their mouth is: venture capitalists.Venture capital traditionally finances an existing company that has a unique market or product but lacks the financial resources to reach its potential. The venture capitalist provides funds in return for equity ownership in the company and a role in corporate strategy, usually including representation on the board of directors.