Sunday Evening gathering for Investors' Circle Members

Cambridge, MA - Agrivida is developing improved agricultural crops that are used to produce environmentally-friendly fuels and chemicals. The company's first product is an optimized variety of corn for use in ethanol production. This corn will increase yields of ethanol per acre of farm land by 50% and cut production costs for ethanol producers by 20%, making ethanol competitive with gasoline without government subsidies.


Herndon, VA - Better Botanicals (BB) markets herbal skin, hair, bath & body care products based on Ayurveda, the worlds’ oldest and most widely practiced school of herbal medicine. BB offers a natural alternative to traditional mass market skin care products, as well as a more functional, effective alternative to established natural lines.  Many BB products are manufactured under an Ayurvedic (medicinal) license without synthetic colors, fragrances, mineral oils, animal ingredients or alcohol. 


Englewood, NJ - BioRegen System’s mission is to design, build, and operate the leading commercial utility systems to treat municipal sewage sludge and residential septage, and to convert their organic elements to high-value products using natural biological processes.  Municipal discharge is the second leading source of pollution to US waterways.  A model BioRegen plant treats 15,000 gallons/day, which services 60,000 people.

BIOVIRx
Shoreview, MN - BIOVIRx has licensed the exclusive worldwide rights to an effective, oral vaccine to prevent rotavirus-related diarrheal diseases in children.  Globally, rotaviral infections accounts for an estimated 135 million cases of diarrhea each year, resulting in the deaths of approximately 600,000 infants annually from a disease that is highly preventable with an oral vaccine.  BIOVIRx intends to market the RotaShield^® vaccine for use worldwide.

Blue Sky Optimum Energy
Buffalo, NY - Blue Sky Energy Inc. offers a processing system that can produce wholesale Biodiesel at $1.10/gallon, comparable to current wholesale Diesel fuel prices of $1.10-1.30/gallon, cheaper than other Biodiesel producers who sell at $1.75-2.50/gallon, and can provide shorter turn around times.  The lifecycle production of Biodiesel produces approximately 80% less carbon dioxides and almost a 100% less sulfur dioxide compared to diesel. In addition there is a 90% reduction in total unburned hydrocarbons and 70-90% less particulates.


Clackamas, OR - Pet Appeal, Inc. (dba Castor & Pollux Pet Worksä) is a creator and marketer of premium branded products that successfully compete in the fast growing $31 billion US pet industry. The Castor & Pollux brand is one of the leading cross category pet brands offering a range of USDA certified organic and natural dog and cat foods, organic treats, toys and snacks.  


Andover, MA - The mission of Essex Environmental Resource Group Ltd. is to innovate, develop, manufacture and market proprietary renewable energy and energy conserving multi-functional building technologies with distinct comparative advantages.  The Company’s proprietary technology dramatically reduces the cost of photovoltaic electricity, bringing its cost immediately below goals ten years away and making it competitive now with alternative sources of electricity. 


San Francisco & New York City - Expansion Capital Partners is a venture capital firm that invests in expansion-stage, Clean Technology enterprises, which present compelling risk-return profiles. Expansion Capital targets companies that offer dramatic improvements in resource efficiency and productivity, while creating more economic value with less energy and materials, or less waste and toxicity.  Expansion Capital Partners investment sectors include energy, advanced materials, water and wastewater, manufacturing, and transportation.

The Farmers Diner
Barre, VT - The Farmers Diner is building a multi-regional chain of diner restaurants that serve typical diner food, 80% of which is raised by local, family scale farmers living within 50-70 mile radius of each diner – “food from here”.  The company currently operates a 60 seat restaurant and a small processing/distribution facility selling branded meat products in VT and NH.

Greenmont Capital Partners
Denver, CO - Greenmont Capital Partners I, LP is a $22M early/growth stage private equity fund founded by natural product industry veterans that partners with entrepreneurs to build successful companies in the Healthy Living and Wellness market.  Greenmont’s mission is to connect entrepreneurs’ vision and passion with the Fund’s network of industry veterans who have a deep understanding of the target consumer and expertise in financing growth of small companies.

San Francisco, CA - The Independent Press Development Fund makes loans to periodicals whose categories cut across Investors’ Circle’s areas of interest.  Borrowers include City Limits, E/The Environmental Magazine, Mother Jones, and Middle East Report.  IPDF will continue to support direct mail efforts, while now also assisting local newspapers in obtaining circulation audits; providing bridge and emergency loans; and underwriting efforts to develop ancillary forms of income.



Brookline, MA - The Massachusetts Green Energy Fund I, L.P. (the “Fund”, or “MGEF”) is a venture capital fund investing in private, Massachusetts-based renewable and clean energy companies with significant potential for financial return, strong growth, and positive local economic impact.  The Fund’s primary objective is to seek above-average risk-adjusted venture capital returns.  Its investments will generate long-term social and environmental benefits by increasing the production and use of renewable energy, catalyzing additional investment in clean energy companies, and growing the US clean energy industry.

Nutiva

Sebastopol, CA - Nutiva^® is America’s leading hemp food company, marketing primarily organic hemp protein powder, hemp oil, hempseeds, and hemp food bars. The Nutiva^® brand is built on great taste, superior nutrition, and a corporate commitment to social responsibility. Hempseed is the world’s most nutritious seed—rich in Omega-3, protein, and vitamin E. Nutiva^® is the only hemp protein to display the USDA organic symbol. Nutiva also donates 1% of its sales to groups that promote sustainable agriculture.

Ocularis Pharma

Evanston, IL - Ocularis Pharma, Inc. is pharmaceutical company that specializes in the development of ophthalmic drugs that improve vision quality and performance, focusing initially on a condition affecting night vision.  Today, one in four people have difficulty seeing at night.  Most of these individuals have never experienced quality night vision.  Ocularis has identified its first-drug, Nyxol™, which can manage pupil size safely and is testing it now in a Phase II clinical study.

Seattle, WA - Founded in 1998, Pura Vida Coffee is a unique, rapidly growing, charitably-owned specialty coffee company that sells 100% certified Fair Trade, organic coffee to individual and institutional consumers in the U.S. in order to provide direct help to at-risk children and families living in coffee-growing countries.  Pura Vida has developed a strong management team and a loyal customer base to become one of the largest independent suppliers of Triple SealTM coffee (100% certified Fair Trade, organic, shade-grown) in the country.  Owned and operated by a non-profit public charity, Pura Vida exists to generate consumer awareness and sustainable funding to promote economic development, social justice and environmental stewardship.


Redwood Power Company 
Cambridge, MA - Redwood Power Company, Inc. is an energy services business which enables commercial property owners in the New England and Middle Atlantic States toto increase the net operating income of their buildings, mitigate the risk of increasing energy prices and offer back-up power services to their tenants with no up-front capital expenditures or on-going managerial responsibilities. Redwood develops, builds, operates and maintains combined-heat-and-power (CHP) systems and, because of the superior efficiencies of CHP, Redwood can deliver electric power at a cost lower than the utility. 


Sambazon
San Clemente, CA - Sambazon, derived from Saving and Managing the Brazilian Amazon, exports rainforest fruits from Brazil for sale internationally.  Sambazon’s primary product is a mixture of açaí, (ah-sigh-ee), a palmberry that contains 33 times the antioxidants of red wine and only grows in the Brazilian Amazon, and the extract of guaraná, a fruit that contains natural stimulants.  This combination creates a revolutionary functional food that provides unmatched nutrition and a natural sustained energy boost.  Sambazon’s economic success opens new markets for açaí, which drives the local economy and provides the Amazonian people with a financial reason to harvest renewable resources instead of relying primarily on timber sales.
 

Seahorse Power Company
Jamaica Plain, MA - Seahorse Power Company Inc. (SPC) utilizes renewable energy technologies to deliver innovative and useful products to large, existing markets.  Our first product, the BigBelly, is a solar-powered compacting trash receptacle that reduces trash/recyclables collection frequency,  significantly reduces litter and collection-vehicle pollution.   Like no other compactor, the BigBelly is cordless, movable and wirelessly-enabled to call for pickups.  It compacts waste to ¼ its original size, right where the waste is generated, dramatically improving the efficiency of waste handling.  Today, garbage trucks consume 1 billion gallons of diesel each year, collecting and hauling over 400 million tons of solid waste in the U.S. 

Durham, NC - SJF Ventures is raising its second capital fund, SJF Ventures II, L.P.  SJF II is being capitalized with up to $50 MM of limited partnership interests.  The Fund’s manager, Sustainable Jobs Corporation, is currently managing a $17 MM fund, SJF Ventures I, L.P. that was founded in 1999.  SJF II will invest in unique clean technologies (industrial efficiency, renewable energy, water, recycling), business services and consumer products companies that are experiencing rapid growth.  With offices in Durham, NC and Philadelphia, PA SJF II will lead investments in the Eastern U.S. and co-invest in cleantech companies nationwide, especially in CA. 

Vancouver, BC - Small Potatoes Urban Delivery (SPUD) is an internet organic food delivery service with a strong social and environmental mandate.  The company delivers certified organic produce plus 1200 grocery items to homes and offices throughout Greater Vancouver and southern Vancouver and is poised for a 20 city roll out across North America over the next 8 to 10 years.  The company serves over 5000 customers, operating from two warehouses in B.C., one in Vancouver and one in Victoria.  SPUD is now the largest organic food delivery firm in North America and has been profitable for three years.  

Solar Roofing Systems
Philadelphia, PA - Solar Roofing Systems (SRS) is in business to design, market, and sell roofs that generate energy using photovoltaic technology (PV).  In the past, “going solar” was a separate decision from purchasing a roof and was made only by very environmentally aware homeowners.  Expense, appearance, reliability and installation complexity have been insurmountable barriers for most homeowners.  SRS has addressed these problems by designing a patented package for PV so that energy is generated from a product that costs, looks, lasts and installs like a typical high-end roof.

SolarOne Solutions
Framingham, MA - SolarOne™ Solutions designs, develops, and markets “micro-utility” product platforms based upon solar (photovoltaic) (PV) technologies. The company offers the Harvester™ Mobile Solar Generator with add-on packages for UV water purification and spot lighting, as well as its SOLed™ line of Solid State Lighting packages for parks, neighborhoods and shelters.  These devices are complemented by a private-labeled data-logging package named the Harvest-Store™. 

Star Farm Productions
Chicago, IL - Star Farm Productions LLC (“Star Farm”) is an entertainment company focused on the development of branded media assets for the youth and family segment of the one trillion dollar global entertainment market.  Star Farm engages kids in all aspects of the product development process and gives them a voice to develop their own ideas and stories.  Each Star Farm property is developed for all media - books, Internet, broadband, television, film, toys - simultaneously versus the traditional approach of “adapting” content from one medium to another. 

Sterling Planet
Alpharetta, GA - Sterling Planet is a privately held, Atlanta-based, environmental energy company founded by seasoned electric utility executives. The company began operations in January 2001 as the first nationwide renewable energy choice. Since that time, Sterling Planet has earned its reputation as a pioneer in bringing  renewable energy solutions to all U.S. consumers and businesses through utility partnerships and direct business-to-consumer sales. The company sells renewable energy certificates (RECs), sometimes called green tags, and tradable renewable energy credits to utilities and business customers.  

Washington, DC - SunEdison delivers a complete package of solar energy services to U.S. customers by offering commercial, governmental, and institutional customers a way to power buildings using clean, renewable energy from the sun, without any upfront capital costs, for rates less than those offered by the electric utility. Using available incentive programs, straightforward structured financing, and socially responsible investors, SunEdison has been able to package solar to “Host” customers in a way that provides competitively priced solar energy to augment existing power.  

Thrive Capital Partners

Palo Alto, CA  - Thrive Capital Partners is being formed to make long term private equity investments in established mission-driven, non-technology, emerging growth companies.  Thrive Capital Partners believe that companies that understand their responsibility to customers, employees, community and the environment have a competitive advantage in the consumer marketplace and make excellent investments. Within the broader universe of smaller non-tech companies, Thrive Capital Partners see a particular opportunity to invest in companies that are taking advantage of a trend toward healthy, natural, sustainable lifestyles and believe that the growth dynamics in the health, fitness, and wellness space are part of a broader consumer revolution that is changing the face of many industries.

Transplant Connect
Santa Monica, CA - Transplant Connect is a medical technology company founded by healthcare professionals and technology veterans.  The company’s initial product, Intelligent Referral SM transplant industry platform, is an integrated suite of communication and data management applications that automate and streamline core processes in the severely underperforming organ and tissue transplant industry.  The global shortage of organs and tissues is severe and worsening.  The transplant industry operates far below its potential, recovering only 6,400 out of 25,000+ potential donors each year in the U.S. alone.

Cambridge, MA - At least two billion people living in rural areas of developing countries lack an affordable communications infrastructure. Using patent-pending technology originally conceived at the MIT Media Lab, United Villages, Inc. now offers a way to provide people in even the most remote areas with a phone number and an email address for under $1.00/person in capital expenditure and approximately $1.00/year/user in aggregated operating costs – a fraction of the cost of any comparable alternative. United Villages is the “Grameen Phone” for all of the villages beyond the reach of traditional cellular or wired infrastructure. 



Charlotte, VT - Wind Works LLC incubates and develops commercial, utility-scale wind energy projects in the eastern U.S. The company identifies attractive projects and obtains land easement rights to build and operate wind turbines via land lease agreements. Further responsibilities involve wind resource monitoring, permitting, community outreach, utility interconnection studies, and power purchase agreement (PPA) negotiations. Wind Works or its principals have initiated wind projects with a total capacity of at least 190 MW. 

Venice Beach, CA - Woman On Top Inc. is producing functional and enhanced food and beverages products with empowerment messages. The company’s corporate vision is to take advantage of the enormous potential in the enhanced water / functional beverage industry and increased concern for healthier and enhanced food and beverages through developing a unique product line with strong brand awareness and secure customer loyalty. The company will focus on women of all ages who feel that by purchasing our products they are not just benefiting from the product itself but also becoming part of something larger than themselves, helping other women and becoming a part of a worldwide movement for a woman’s right to feel empowered ("Woman On Top”).