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St.Louis: New Venture Capital Group Cultivation Capital Announces First Three Investments

Yesterday we brought you the story of the exciting St.Louis startup LockerDome. LockerDome, the first social network for athletes (that’s been done right) has attracted the investment of Jim McKelvey, one of the co-founders of Square. LockerDome has so much going for it right now, that yesterday we asked is LockerDome the Groupon of St.Louis. Many folks from St.Louis chimed in on Twitter suggesting that LockerDome was even better than that.

Today we’re reporting on a new St. Louis venture capital group. Cultivation Capital has announced it’s first three investments. Not surprising, LockerDome is one of those investments.

Cultivation Capital announced a $250,000 investment into LockerDome, which co-founder Gabe Lozano told us was a new investment for the company, complimenting the $750,000 they raised at the end of last year.

“Cultivation Capital brings much needed financial resources to the rapidly growing number of early stage tech startups in the St. Louis area. We decided to work with Cultivation Capital because they’re run by a solid team of local entrepreneurs that have collectively built some of the area’s most successful startups. I have a lot of respect for the individuals behind the fund and look forward to seeing these guys positively contribute to evolving the local landscape.” Lozano told nibletz.com

Cultivation Capital’s second investment was also $250,000 which went to JBara Software. JBara Software provides deep customer intelligence analysis for enterprises to manage customer success and minimize churn. JBara is a leader in supporting the executive in charge of customer satisfaction by providing actionable insights into the customer experience and key customer metrics.

They also made a strategic investment into Capital Innovators. Capital Innovators is a St.Louis based technology accelerator which provides mentorship and seed funding into select companies.

“These three companies mark an exciting entrance for Cultivation Capital into the Missouri startup market,” says Peter Esparrago. “Their innovative approaches to business set a strong precedent for future investments in the Midwest.”

The Cultivation Capital team is led by General Partners and experienced entrepreneurs Brian Matthews, Peter Esparrago, Jim McKelvey and Rick Holton, Jr., who have a combined track record of more than 25 companies started, over $200 million raised and multiple exits. The team includes Associate Partners Kyle Welborn and Israel Vicars.

Linkage:

If you’re a St.Louis area entrepreneur you can apply to Cultivation Capital here

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St. Louis Arch Angels Invest $3 Million In 2011

We love angel funds with great names like Arch Angels (get it St.Louis, Arch, Arch Angels?). The group of investors that has been around since 2005 announced their biggest year in funding was 2011 with $3 million in investments in a variety of early stage sectors. Their investments range from health technology, to beverages and even backing a downtown St. Louis accelerator fund.

The angel group has 47 members and have invested $26 million in 28 companies since their founding in 2005.

Their leading investments in 2011 were $500,000 to Pulse Technologies. The health care company is working on developing a medical device to boost the effectiveness in clot dissolving drugs.

The groups second largest investment was $173,000 in a beverage company developed by Robert Paul, a neuropsychologist who after hearing about brain drinks decided if it was going to be done right he would do it himself. Arch Angels investment was part of a $900,000 round that also included former executives of Anheiser Busch.

Arch Angels other investments were in two more medical companies, Katalyst Surgical which received $123,000 for opthalmic instruments and $220,000 in Venti a medical device company focused on diseases of the veins.

They also contributed $375,000 to Capital Innovators the downtown accelerator fund. Capital Innovators has backed 12 startups that showed off their projects at a demo day held in the beginning of the month.

source: Stltoday.com

Top 10 Reasons To Pick The STL Over SF For Your Next Startup

This is a repost from a Tech.li article with their permission with a link a bottom of article.

1.St. Louis is Cool

If you like sports, St. Louis is your kind of town. If you like eating, restaurants abound and if Mardi Gras is your type of thing, try checking out the nation’s biggest Mardi Gras celebration outside of New Orleans in the French District. In a city dripping with history, there is plenty of culture to keep anyone satiated, if/when you ever take a day off from growing the business, of course.