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iMinds Ventures Becomes Outlook Ventures San Francisco, CA, September 4, 2002 — Venture capital firm, iMinds Ventures, has changed its name to Outlook Ventures to better reflect the firm's focus and its approach to current market dynamics. Since 1996, Outlook Ventures' mission has been to assist early stage entrepreneurs in turning their visions into results. "Our firm focuses solely on investments in seed- and early-stage companies that provide software and software infrastructure to enterprises," said managing partner Randy Haykin. "We have developed a reputation for identifying trends and opportunities early, for picking good companies, and for providing active support that builds lasting value for these companies." The current market situation demands that early stage investors have a clear outlook on the future that can serve to guide their investment decisions and the strategic business decisions of their portfolio companies. The combination of fluctuating markets and uncertain customer needs results in a particularly challenging business climate for startups. However, the firm believes in investing for the long term and their partners' experience and active involvement are proving to be particularly valuable to their portfolio at this time. "While today's public markets are still challenging we take a long-term view since today's start-up will not be ready to enter the public market for four to six years. As early stage investors we see this as a great time to start a business — most resources are plentiful, time is available to build a solid foundation and competition from other start-ups is more limited. However, many sources of early-stage capital have dried up in the past couple of years." said managing partner Carl Nichols. "Outlook Ventures is committed to being forward-thinking about the software industry including actively investing in early stage ventures and providing a perspective on future trends that is much-needed by the industry right now." True to Nichols' statement, Outlook Ventures continues to actively invest and build companies. This year, Outlook Ventures investments have included nSite Software, a company that integrates manual and automated business processes, and NetBrowser, which provides web-based monitoring solutions for mission critical data center infrastructure. To continually evolve its outlook on the future, Outlook Ventures expands it views from in-house research and programs such as the CIO/CTO Council, which provides portfolio companies with access to CIOs of over 25 corporations, including IBM, VISA, Cadence, The Gap, JP Morgan and eBay. The May CIO/CTO Council meeting featured Maureen Conway, CIO of Hewlett-Packard, who spoke on the topic of "The CIO As a Change Agent." A regular networking opportunity for portfolio companies, the firm's July "Meeting of the Minds" featured Bill Howard, the CIO of Sun Microsystems, alongside other industry leaders for a discussion of "CIO Perspectives and Priorities in Today's Environment." About Outlook Ventures Based in San Francisco, Outlook Ventures provides very early stage software ventures with capital and active support they need to create lasting value. Portfolio companies include Overture (N: OVTR), Impulse Networks (acquired by Inktomi - N: INKT), Kinecta (acquired by Stellent - N: STEL), Soundview Technology (N: SNDV ) and Epicentric. The firm's principals apply their experience with over 100 startups and global corporations alongside depth of capital and operational resources, unique among very early stage firms, to helping these entrepreneurs turn their visions into results. As a result, since its founding in 1996, 60% of Outlook Ventures' investments have resulted in either acquisition or IPO. Contact: |
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