Exceptional female entrepreneurs wanted!

Astia calls for applications to join its accelerator programme in Europe

LONDON and AMSTERDAM, 15 December, 2010 – The premier venture accelerator for women-led high- growth companies, is calling for applications from UK and European start-ups to join Astia and participate in its prestigious Entrepreneur Programme, to be held in London in March 2011. Technology, Life Science and Clean Technology companies are encouraged to apply.

Founded in Silicon Valley and held annually in Silicon Valley, New York, and London, Astia’s Entrepreneur Programme is transformative - providing entrepreneurs with access to a broad range of resources and experts that ensure access to capital as well as the successful growth of their businesses.

“I have seen the calibre of female entrepreneurs that Astia supports with its network and programmes and very much looking forward to the class of 2011 Astia Europe,” said Sherry Coutu of Cambridge Angels.

A handpicked group of just 255 companies across the globe have been invited to become part of the Astia programme since 2003. Invitations are extended only to those companies that pass Astia’s robust screening and qualification process.

Since 2003, more than 60% of the companies showcased at Astia Investor Forums have secured funding or an exit within one year, totalling more than $750 million raised and 21 exits including two IPOs.

“The programme has produced exceptional results over the years – our funding success rate is unmatched in the market,” commented Sharon Vosmek, CEO, Astia. “We are excited to see the growth and adoption of the Astia model in Europe.”

Participants in the European Programme in London will spend five days, 14-18 March 2011, in a series of workshops, one on one sessions and discussions with investors, entrepreneurs and business professionals designed to provide a blueprint for successful fundraising and growth strategies. This is followed by an eight-week advisory period which includes investors, CEOs and business professionals from the Astia community of over 1000 men and women. Select companies will then present to the investment community at the Astia Investor Forum on 12th May 2011. Prior Forum attendees include Accel, Octopus Ventures, Index Ventures, Atomico, and the Technology Strategy Board.

Janneke Niessen, COO and Co-founder, ImproveDigital, Astia Europe class of 2010, said, “We had an amazing week in the Astia European programme, talking to many interesting people and learning a lot. We know Astia can deliver a lot of opportunities to us, and we are looking forward being part of it! The Astia programme and community are invaluable to us in developing high growth and international plans of our company – and we have been able to establish extremely important relationships with outstanding investors and advisors through the Astia programme.”

Simone Brummelhuis, Vice President, Europe, Astia, said, “I am delighted to be rolling out Astia’s programme in Europe for 2011. The UK and Europe are bursting with entrepreneurial ventures, many of which are led by superbly talented women. We want to provide these women with access to the rich network and expertise that Astia has to offer. I encourage all ambitious female entrepreneurs to apply.”

The deadline to apply is 7th February 2011. Apply via www.astia.org. Online screening will be done by investors, CEOs and business professionals until February 18th, followed by in-person screening on February 24th.

Contact Simone Brummelhuis at simone@astia.org

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About Astia

Astia is a global not-for-profit organization with a distinct focus and mission – to propel women’s full participation as entrepreneurs and leaders in high-growth businesses, fueling innovation and driving economic growth. Guided by a proven philosophy that gender diversity is an essential element of innovation, Astia works with start-ups around the world as they access capital, grow their businesses, and hone the leadership skills of their founding teams.

The Astia model of engaging a community of 1000 experts to the benefit of the select start-ups it serves has resulted in an exceptional success rate: since 2003, over 60 percent of companies that have participated in the Astia Investor Forums have secured funding or achieved an exit within one year of presenting, totalling more than $750 million dollars raised and 21 exits, including two IPOs. Headquartered in San Francisco, Astia delivers programs for entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, New York, London and India. Astia has also had significant press coverage in major media channels including The New York Times, Businessweek, Forbes and The Financial Times. For more information, visit www.astia.org.

Astia Sponsors

Astia is generously supported by The Three Guineas Fund, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, Microsoft, Fenwick & West, AOL, Lowenstein Sandler, Moss Adams, Morrison & Foerster, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, SNR Denton, SVB Financial Group, Osborne Clarke, US Trust – Bank of America, Wells Fargo, AngelSoft, Cisco, Iron Creative, IF Communications, Tier One Partners, J. Sagar Associates, Alloy Ventures, AOL Ventures, Asset Management, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Illuminate Ventures, Levensohn Venture Partners, Golden Seeds, Prolog Ventures, StarVest Partners, and Rose Tech Ventures.

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What is the right time to be an entrepreneur?

The following is a guest post by Esha Tiwary.

This is one question I’ve been thinking about for a while, and that often comes up in conversations. It is an interesting one because it seems to have a “publicly acceptable” answer, regardless of what the individual might personally believe. It is a favorite topic of academicians to disseminate wisdom on, quite ironically I must add. And it is definitely one that has given every budding or struggling entrepreneur a sleepless night or two.

Of course, the well-known answer is, “When you have gathered enough relevant experience.” Everyone knows how important experience is to build a successful business. You can’t possibly know what to do if you haven’t been doing the exact same thing for the past 10 years. Current entrepreneurs will agree because that’s what they were told and they went and got the experience. Investors will agree because this is the only easy filter they can apply to choose amongst the hundreds of proposals they see every year. And academicians, well, serial (and hence, experienced) entrepreneurs make the best business school case studies!

Allow me to propose something drastic. The above answer is wrong. And it is wrong for the simple reason that the question itself is incorrect. I think the right question is, “What is the right attitude to be an entrepreneur?” It is a state of mind and not a biological age that determines when one is ready to be an entrepreneur. And no place better exemplified this than the Astia Doing it Right program this year. It was supremely inspiring to see the absolute range of entrepreneurs there – from a 21 year old to women who had been in the industry for two decades before taking the plunge. And one thing they all had in common was the spark – the desire to build something amazing.

A thing to note is also that you needn’t always have “the idea” to be able to take the plunge. One of the women I met at Astia said that one day she just decided that she wanted to build her own business. And once she made that decision, everything sort of fell into place. Because let’s face it, the right attitude and effort can turn the most commonplace of ideas into a stroke of genius.

- Esha Tiwary

Esha is the Head of Business Development at Embrace, one of the companies selected in the Doing it Right program this year. She is a graduate of Harvard Business School and Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.

Guest conversation from Astia VP Europe, Simone Brummelhuis

Astia is a community of experts, building women leaders and accelerating the funding and growth of high potential, high growth women-led start-ups.

I have read and heard this many times, it's on the Astia website, the reason of its existence, it became for me almost a mantra.

And as of this week I know, I have seen that the mantra is true.

I have never seen a group of experts more committed, more experienced, more qualified than this week. And I have never seen a group of women entrepreneurs who are so eager to be leaders and to accelerate their high potential startups. I am overwhelmed, and I am not the only one, the entrepreneurs are overwhelmed, both by the experts as well as their peers.

Last week I arrived in San Francisco -after a 22 year absence- much too long. And the occasion to visit San Francisco is the 2010 Astia Doing it Right Silicon Valley Program.

A full 43 companies and 58 entrepreneurs made it through the rigorous screening of joining this week’s program. Most are North American companies, 2 companies from Europe, 1 company from India and 1 company from New Zealand in industries of clean tech, life-science, enterprise software, medical devices, leisure and retail products.

Many of these female entrepreneurs have built a business before, some in a corporate environment, some have successfully exited their previous businesses. Some of the startups already raised their angel money, and are connecting with Astia for the institutional rounds of funding. Some of them are serial entrepreneurs or -as one woman calls herself- Startup Junkies. But what has been clear from the outset is that the class of 2010 is quite special.

I came to watch, to learn, to support the European companies, and, above all, to get ready for our European Astia program which will take place March 14-18, 2011.

From the first day of the program with a panel of impressive alumni Astia entrepreneurs - who where in the 60% success rate of Astia companies getting funding - to the last day of the program: it has been a roller coaster of panels, workshops and round tables with impressive investors, entrepreneurs, corporate heads and service providers with bios that each read as novels.

The entrepreneurs have -inter alia- stood up to present their ideas, listened to seasoned entrepreneurs who have uncovered their go-to-market strategy, calculated their financial projections together with financial wizzards, shaken hands with illustre giants of the tech industry, given out business cards to gatekeepers of venture capital firms, and established relationships with the global corporate giants.

The week was packed from morning to evening, there was no escape but go for it; a steep learning curve for all the women-led companies as never before. Also, never before were so many men and women of outstanding caliber together to support women-led companies. Tom Kosnik of Stanford, Dan'l Lewin of Microsoft, Bashkar Gorti of Oracle, Bill Reichert of Garage Technology Ventures and Bill Campbell, Chairman of Intuit. And who says that there are no women in global high positions? With Shellye Archambeau of Metric Stream, Eileen Gittens of Blurb, Andrea Zurek of XG Ventures and Renee Knee of Hewlett Packard, Astia brought forward outstanding rolemodels.

And on top of it, there was Female Internet Hero, Susan Wojcicki of Google who presented her case to give her support to the Astia female entrepreneurs.

As one of the first employees from 1999 at Google (she let her garage to Sergey and Larry), now a top 10 leader in Google and responsible for 97% of Google's turnover, while being a mom of 4 children, she puts in practice her own advice: Have a mission and you and other people can work harder for you, collect the best insights and make them your own, continue innovation and not perfection and believe in the impossible and it can become true, and KEEP GOING!

The great things is, that it's all applicable to the Astia class of 2010.

We want this in Europe too!

Simone Brummelhuis joined Astia in 2008 as a member of the Astia European Advisory Board. A former attorney, today she runs Astia Europe as the Vice President of that market. Simone lives in Amsterdam with her husband and three daughters.

Open Letter from the CEO to the new Astia companies

November 2010

Dear Entrepreneur,

Welcome to Astia!

Today begins your relationship with a ten-year-old community that spans the globe and seeks to ensure your success as a business and your success as an entrepreneur. We focus on what matters most to high-growth entrepreneurs – skills and networks. We know that it takes specific skills to succeed in high-growth markets and that those skills can be learned (think “not recreating wheels”). Of equal importance, it takes a network to connect you to your investors, customers, suppliers, employees and acquirers (think “the individual does not scale”).

All of this we know because of who we are. We are a community of entrepreneurs, investors, industry leaders, and others who influence and benefit from the high-growth, innovation ecosystem.

Our model is extremely unique, in that it is:

High touch – over 1,000 advisors work to help our entrepreneurs grow their businesses and achieve success. On average, Astia Advisors spend over five hours per week with our companies during the Doing It Right program.

Highly customized – the Astia screening process gives us critical information that enables us to build a program and an Advisor team designed for each company and entrepreneur’s specific needs, based on stage and location of company, market opportunity, technology, CEO experience, and every other bit of information you have provided. This approach is how we will continue to work with you long after your experience at the Doing It Right program.

High impact – since 2003, our clients have averaged a greater-than 60% success rate – a level unparalleled in the industry. Each Advisor relationship is tied to measurable results. This is not a networking group. This is a group that delivers real and measurable results for the entrepreneur.

In today’s uncertain investment climate, you must focus on your business. Let us join you in that effort. As I said at the beginning of this letter, Astia is a community – and as of today – Astia is you!

Yours sincerely,

Astia CEO Sharon Vosmek Participates in Women’s Entrepreneurship Conference at The White House

SAN FRANCISCO | October 12, 2010

Astia named in Opening Session as providing great leadership to women entrepreneurs

Astia, the premier Silicon Valley venture accelerator for women-led high growth companies, today announced that CEO Sharon Vosmek participated in the Women’s Entrepreneurship Conference convened by The White House Council on Women and Girls, the Small Business Administration, the Department of Commerce, and the Department of Treasury on October 4, 2010. Astia was named in the Opening Session by Karen Mills, Administrator US Small Business Administration, as providing great leadership and was invited to share with these agencies the learnings, perspectives, and experiences unique to women high-growth entrepreneurs. The day was comprised of opening keynotes followed by working break-out sessions to discuss challenges and solutions moving forward.

While women have made great strides in growing businesses and creating jobs over the past few decades, significant challenges still remain. This Conference brought together a mix of business owners, women leaders, advocacy groups and government officials to address the critical challenges, opportunities and public policy initiatives needed to move the women’s business agenda to the next level. The event was a clear sign of the Obama Administration’s commitment to creating opportunities for women and fostering their entrepreneurial spirit.

“I commend The White House Council on Women and Girls, the Small Business Administration, the Department of Commerce, and the Department of Treasury for convening this conference and recognizing the important role of women entrepreneurs in the economy,” said Sharon J. Vosmek, CEO of Astia. “I was honored to be invited to the conversation to ensure that the unique needs of high growth companies were discussed, as compared to small businesses and micro enterprises.”

According to Astia, two of the greatest challenges for high growth women entrepreneurs are:

• Access to networks. Men and women in different networks is a societal issue that is magnified in the investment or fundraising scenario and a gender inclusive approach is needed. Currently there are too many women-only solutions and this approach excludes women from opportunities to which they should have access.

• Self-assurance. Women still self assess lower than men, and therefore their business aspirations are often understated. With access to diverse networks and advisors and the opportunity to scale the business, women succeed.

A new report focused on these challenges, titled “Women-owned Businesses in the 21st Century,” was released at the conference. This report was prepared by the US Dept of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration for the White House Council on Women and Girls. Key findings of the study shared with the group included:

• Women owned businesses contribute $1.2 Trillion to the US Economy;
• Women owned businesses lag behind their male counterparts in growth;
• Key causes for the lag continue to be access to capital and industries chosen by women (i.e. healthcare and education);
• Between 1997 and 2006, majority women-owned firms in the U.S. grew at nearly twice the rate of all US privately held firms;
• Currently 10.1 million firms are owned by women, employing more than 13 million people, and generate $1.9 trillion in sales.

In her opening remarks, Karen Mills, Administrator of the US Small Business Association named Astia and Dr. Patricia Greene of Babson College (pictured in photo above) as key to the day’s conversations. Speakers at the event included Tina Tchen, Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement & Executive Director of the White House Council on Women & Girls and Valerie Jarrett, Sr. Advisor to the President & Chair of the White House Council on Women & Girls. Approximately 120 people were in attendance.


About Astia
Astia is a global not-for-profit organization built on a community with a distinct focus and mission – to propel women’s full participation as entrepreneurs and leaders in high-growth businesses, fueling innovation and driving economic growth. Guided by a proven philosophy that gender diversity is an essential element of innovation, Astia works with start-ups around the world as they access capital, grow their businesses, and hone the leadership skills of their founding teams.

The Astia model of engaging a community of experts to the benefit of the select start-ups it serves has resulted in an exceptional success rate: since 2003, over 60 percent of companies that have participated in the Astia Investor Forums have secured funding or achieved an exit within one year of presenting, totalling more than $750 million dollars raised and 20 exits, including two IPOs. Headquartered in San Francisco, Astia delivers programs for entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, New York, London and India. Astia has also had significant press coverage in major media channels including The New York Times, Businessweek, Forbes, The Daily Telegraph and The Financial Times.

For more information, visit www.astia.org.