News Coverage
4/25/08
TrafficCast Given Top Marks at Dow Jones Wireless Innovations Conference
Dow Jones
Ten companies were given top marks by attendees and
expert panelists at Dow Jones' Wireless Innovations conference this week.
The conference, held in Redwood City, Calif., featured two days of panel
presentations and keynotes by venture capital professionals and company
executives, and breakout sessions in which 80 start-up companies selected
by VentureWire editors presented their business plans.
Read more...
1/29/08
CS-Keys prepares for new VC funds
Indianapolis Star
CS-Keys, an Indianapolis startup developing a new method
for the early detection of cancer, is expected to announce today that it
has received $6.25 million in funding. CS-Keys -- for Cancer Specific
Keys -- has developed a method using biomarkers designed to help
pathologists detect the presence of breast cancer in biopsies taken
from patients. The company hopes to use its technology to help in the
diagnosis of other cancers, including prostate, cervical, ovarian and
colorectal.
Read more...
1/23/08
TrafficCast raises $3.5 million
Business Journal of Milwaukee
TrafficCast International Inc., a provider of predictive
traffic software in Madison, said it has raised about $3.5 million in a
recent round of funding. The company had previously announced raising
$2 million in capital but the board of directors extended the round to
accommodate additional investor interest and to fund growth in an
expanding market for mobile and interactive travel information.
Read more...
12/24/07
Brill Street appeals to tech-savvy college students
so everyone gets more out of the experience
Chicago Sun-Times
If West Loop-based startup Brill Street + Company
executes on its business plan, college interns across the country might
never be asked to fetch coffee or aimlessly push paperwork again.
For decades, the deal between interns and their employers
has been pretty clear. Students toil away on random projects for peanuts in
exchange for workplace exposure and credit toward their degrees. Two years
ago, David Frej and wife Nancy Lerner founded Brill Street to more
systematically place interns and part-time college students with employers
genuinely in need of their services.
Read more...
2/15/07
This Time It's Mine: Why high-powered women are leaving
Corporate America to become entrepreneurs
BusinessWeek
BusinessWeek SmallBiz tracked down 18 of these high-powered women
[including Ceres managing director Donna Williamson] to
discover why they traded the relative security of a big company for a
startup, and to find out what their experiences can teach other entrepreneurs.
Working with executive recruiters, women's business groups, venture
capitalists, angel investors, and other successful entrepreneurs,
we identified women who had left senior positions at large companies,
where they typically had profit-and-loss responsibility for
multimillion-dollar units, to start their own companies.
Read more...
12/14/06
Women's fund backs firms:
State-backed VC Ceres makes its first two investments
Chicago Sun-Times
A few months after its formation,
the only women-owned venture capital fund in the
state has made its first investments -- one in a
Chicago-based company and the other a Colorado
business that will be setting up operations in Illinois.
Read more...
11/06
The Feminine Touch: Women are joining forces to invest in life science ventures, and getting results
The Scientist
Ceres Venture Fund, a women-led partnership in Evanston, Ill.,
is among the latest entrants, and one of the few that heavily favors healthcare
and life sciences. Donna Williamson, one of the three women who cofounded the
company, is a former corporate officer of global healthcare giant Baxter
International and a founding officer of health-services provider Caremark
International. "This is an area that has seen huge growth in professional
graduates, in women in medical school, in women in PhD programs," Williamson
notes. "We feel there's a huge opportunity to be able to support the initiatives
that these women are going to want to take in terms of entrepreneurship and
growing businesses."
Read more...
8/1/06
Q&A: Ceres Venture Fund Managing Director
Laura Pearl on Women-Led Businesses
Illinois Venture Capital Association News
Laura Pearl is a managing director and co-founder of the
Ceres Venture Fund in Chicago. She sat down with the Illinois Venture
Capital Association to discuss the need for funding women-led companies
as well as the current funding climate in general.
Read more...