December 9, 2009

The May Report: 12/09/2009: Here at TMR when we (I) goof, at least we (I) admit
it and reveal it — so mea culpa on missing the story of Groupon getting $30MM
from Accel (and NEA)

Editor and publisher: ron@themayreport.com, ronaldmay@aol.com,
www.themayreport.com, 773-525-3944.

If you missed an article, go here:
www.tmronline.com/A55951/tmrarticles.nsf/vwFullNewsletter
______________________________________
**********************************
The Midwest Entrepreneurs’ Forum Wednesday December 9th 2009
Networking Event
Date: Wednesday December 9th, 2009
Time: 5:30 – 9:00 PM
Location: Union League Club – 2nd Floor Lounge 65 West Jackson Chicago, IL.
Cost Online Registration with Credit Card will be $30 for MEF Members and
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Admission at the Door will be $30 for MEF Members and $40 for Non-Members.

For Online Registration, Please go to:
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NETWORKING EVENT

Reservation fees are non-refundable! By registering on line you agree that
you have read this and that you agree.
*************************************************
_____________________________________
TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Scoop section:

— Andrew Taylor: Ron, you missed a big story — the $30MM in funding from
Accel for Groupon.com
— Angela Hardin: Argonne goes to Copenhagen to talk Smart Grid, PHEVs
[May here. Angela, you are doing a good job with PR for Argonne, but just so
that you know, traveling has one "l" not two.]
— The Tech Crunch story on Groupon and the $30MM plus comments
— Tuesday, December 15: MIT-EF holiday party
— Ned Heizer was early but by no means the first
— QuesTek Wins Three SBIR Phase I Awards to Design and Develop Alloys
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_______________________________________
The Scoop section:
________________________
Andrew Taylor: Ron, you missed a big story — the $30MM in funding from Accel
for Groupon.com

From: Andrew Taylor andrewjtaylor@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: The May Report: 12/04/2009: Hyde Park Angels and SoftTech VC
invest $1MM in ReTel, a firm that was in the New Venture Challenge in 2008; At
least Bill Merchantz has a sense of humor, but for Fred, Terry and Ron, we are
now in a declared state of war
Date: Tue, 8 Dec 2009 07:16:28 -0800 (PST)
To: The May Report ron@themayreport.com

Ron,

You spent so much energy focusing on vendettas with the ITA and others that you
utterly missed the largest early-stage tech story in years in Chicago. The
growth of GroupOn, and the resulting $30 million investment from NEA and Accel
is a wonderful story that developed right under your nose. You failed to bring
it to your readers in favor of rants against those who you perceive have
crossed you.

Sorry Ron, but you missed this one.

Best,
Andrew

————-
The message is short because the keys are small.

On Dec 4, 2009, at 3:17 PM, “The May Report” wrote:
_____________________________________

May here. Andrew, thanks for the heads up. I did miss that and yes, I have been
distracted, no doubt about it. Being banned from events is a serious matter,
especially if you sre supposed to be a reporter. Groupon is not an ITA member
and next April, they’ll probably miss out on nominating them as they did on
FeedBurner. But at that point, why would they or anyone else even care? And
Andrew, I don’t sit on big stories for several months without revealing them
unless there is good reason to do so.

__________________________________
Angela Hardin: Argonne goes to Copenhagen to talk Smart Grid, PHEVs
[May here. Angela, you are doing a good job with PR for Argonne, but just so
that you know, traveling has one "l" not two.]

From: Angela Hardin ahardin@anl.gov
Subject: Argonne goes to Copenhagen to talk Smart Grid, PHEVs
Date: Tue, 08 Dec 2009 08:30:33 -0500
To: ron@themayreport.com

I wanted to let you know that two Argonne researchers will be travelling to
Copenhagen Thursday to participate in this weekend’s Bright Green Expo during
the highly anticipated United Nations Climate Change Conference. While world
leaders and policymakers address how to confront climate change, some of the
globe’s leading business and research organizations, including Argonne, will
show off their cutting-edge technologies to help mitigate and prevent further
climate change. Argonne’s Ted Bohn and Keith Hardy will be on hand to discuss
how plug-in hybrid electric vehicles fit in with Smart Grid technology and can
be used to help slow climate change. Please give me a call if you are
interested in speaking with Ted or Keith.

Best regards,

Angela Y. Hardin

Media Relations Specialist

Argonne National Laboratory

9700 S. Cass Avenue

Argonne, IL 60439

Phone: (630) 252-5501

Fax: (630) 252-5274

E-mail: ahardin@anl.gov

www.anl.gov

Follow Argonne on Twitter, Flickr and YouTube

Find an Argonne Expert: blogs.anl.gov/expertsguide/
______________________________________
The Tech Crunch story on Groupon and the $30MM plus comments

www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/02/groupon-gets-a-hefty-30-million-from-accel-
for-local-offers-service/

Groupon Gets A Hefty $30 Million From Accel For Local Offers Service
62 Comments
443 retweet Share68by Michael Arrington on December 2, 2009
Chicago based Groupon, which was formerly known as ThePoint, has raised a hefty
Series B financing – $30 million – from new investor Accel Partners and
existing investor New Enterprise Associates. Accel’s Kevin Efrusy joins
Groupon’s board of directors.

The company is going gangbusters. They offer users deep discounts on local
deals – spas, sky diving lessons, hotels, restaurants, golf, whtaever.
Discounts range from 40%-90% of the normal price. If enough people buy into the
offer, everyone gets the deal. If there aren’t enough people, no one gets the
deal. Groupon collects payment and passes it on, minus their fee, to the
business.

Example – 1,600 people in one day bought skydiving lessons in Chicago, says the
company, getting a 44% discount on the $229 price. And the company making the
offer normally sells just 6,000 lessons per year. They sacrificed some profit,
but gos lots of new customers.

What makes the service so compelling is that people have an incentive to get
their friends involved to make sure the minimum is hit. And Groupon makes it
easy to spread the word about offers via Facebook and Twitter. Their user
acquisition costs? zero.

Groupon generally takes 30% – 50% of the total price paid for the service, and
they are on track, they say, to do $100 million in gross merchandise sales in
2010. They reached profitability in June 2009, just six months after launching
the service.

Chicago launched first but the site now covers 26 cities and is adding a new
one every week. They have 126 employees, more than half of which are sales
staff finding new deals for users. The company has now raised about $35 million
in aggregate, including an early angel round.

Think they deserve a Crunchie for best application or best new product in 2009?
Vote for them here.

get widgetminimize
CrunchBase Information
Groupon
Website: groupon.com
Location: Chicago, Illinois, United States
Founded: November 11, 2008
Funding: $35.8M

Groupon (www.groupon.com) features a daily deal on the best stuff to do, see,
eat, and buy in cities across the United States. By promising businesses a
minimum number of customers, we can offer deals that aren’t available elsewhere.

Groupon… Learn More

Accel Partners
Website: accel.com
Location: Palo Alto, California, United States
Investments: Seeking Alpha, Genius.com, Groupon, NextG Networks, XConnect,
VeriVue, YuMe, Sun Run Generation, and more

Accel Partners is a global venture capital firm with offices located in Silicon
Valley, London, and India. They typically make multi-stage investments in
internet technology companies.

Founded in 1983, Accel Partners has a long history of… Learn More
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Groupon Gets A Hefty $30 Million From Accel For Local Offers Service
62 Comments
443 retweet Share68by Michael Arrington on December 2, 2009
Chicago based Groupon, which was formerly known as ThePoint, has raised a hefty
Series B financing – $30 million – from new investor Accel Partners and
existing investor New Enterprise Associates. Accel’s Kevin Efrusy joins
Groupon’s board of directors.

The company is going gangbusters. They offer users deep discounts on local
deals – spas, sky diving lessons, hotels, restaurants, golf, whtaever.
Discounts range from 40%-90% of the normal price. If enough people buy into the
offer, everyone gets the deal. If there aren’t enough people, no one gets the
deal. Groupon collects payment and passes it on, minus their fee, to the
business.

Example – 1,600 people in one day bought skydiving lessons in Chicago, says the
company, getting a 44% discount on the $229 price. And the company making the
offer normally sells just 6,000 lessons per year. They sacrificed some profit,
but gos lots of new customers.

What makes the service so compelling is that people have an incentive to get
their friends involved to make sure the minimum is hit. And Groupon makes it
easy to spread the word about offers via Facebook and Twitter. Their user
acquisition costs? zero.

Groupon generally takes 30% – 50% of the total price paid for the service, and
they are on track, they say, to do $100 million in gross merchandise sales in
2010. They reached profitability in June 2009, just six months after launching
the service.

Chicago launched first but the site now covers 26 cities and is adding a new
one every week. They have 126 employees, more than half of which are sales
staff finding new deals for users. The company has now raised about $35 million
in aggregate, including an early angel round.

Think they deserve a Crunchie for best application or best new product in 2009?
Vote for them here.

get widgetminimize
CrunchBase Information
Groupon
Website: groupon.com
Location: Chicago, Illinois, United States
Founded: November 11, 2008
Funding: $35.8M

Groupon (www.groupon.com) features a daily deal on the best stuff to do, see,
eat, and buy in cities across the United States. By promising businesses a
minimum number of customers, we can offer deals that aren’t available elsewhere.

Groupon… Learn More

Accel Partners
Website: accel.com
Location: Palo Alto, California, United States
Investments: Seeking Alpha, Genius.com, Groupon, NextG Networks, XConnect,
VeriVue, YuMe, Sun Run Generation, and more

Accel Partners is a global venture capital firm with offices located in Silicon
Valley, London, and India. They typically make multi-stage investments in
internet technology companies.

Founded in 1983, Accel Partners has a long history of… Learn More

Information provided by CrunchBase
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Comments
Eric (@InterviewBooks) – December 2nd, 2009 at 12:08 am PST
That is a clear business model, final a startup with real profit potential

reply
Heather – December 2nd, 2009 at 7:09 pm PST
Have you heard of BuyWithMe.com? Similar idea but better deals and better
website layout too. Based in Boston.

reply
Sam Bensalem (@sambensalem) – December 2nd, 2009 at 12:08 am PST
This is a massive opportunity for others to jump into this space. Groupon can’t
scale this product that well since it’s very B&M.

Seems like a huge market.

reply
George (@jippidy) – December 2nd, 2009 at 1:41 pm PST
$30 Million will help. I’m sure they can ramp investment if needed as well.

reply
Nikolay Kolev (@nikolay) – December 2nd, 2009 at 12:23 am PST
So, back to the Skydiving lessons: 44% discount + 30-50% price cut for Groupon
from the end price (56% of the original) = 60.8-72%. How many merchants can
give such crazy discounts, i.e. sell their services/products at 28-39.2% of
their original price?

reply
Michael Arrington (@arrington) – December 2nd, 2009 at 12:30 am PST
customer acquisition is awesome, and this is a lot cheaper than most ways of
advertising.

reply
Nikolay Kolev (@nikolay) – December 2nd, 2009 at 12:40 am PST
“Customers” (loyal group bringing repeat business) or “deal junkies” (a group
with totally slutty behavior)?

reply
James Law (@james_law) – December 2nd, 2009 at 1:27 am PST
Not sure how many people “deal junky” Sky Diving?

Doesn’t seem like the same sort of purchase impulse as a 40″ flat screen?

If you’ve got a tight niche like adrenalin junkies sounds like a great way to
acquire outside of advertising.

reply
ivoice247 – December 2nd, 2009 at 3:43 am PST
hi arrington,

Gosh!! i have been thinking of this idea for about a couple of months now.
Never knew some one had started it. This will be a killer app for facebook. I
recommend this for facebook.
Facebook has very good local ads and service delivery due to its large
concentration of local users. Lets say facebook has 4 million new york users,
imagine getting a flight deal with a particular airline offering 30-50%
discounts if it can get up to 100,000 of its new-york users to buy air tickets
this season.
Imagine facebook now duplicating this offer for an airline connecting 1,000
cities and destinations. This will be awesome!!! Then facebook can scale this
up to offer other new /launching products to multiple cities simultaneously.
They can offer every product available direct from manufacturer to end users
using courier companies deliver goods. They’ll just need to have a database of
all members’ credit card info to ensure the cards are well funded for the
product
They can offer electronic deals, automobile deals, home and office deals,
ebooks etc etc If facebook doesnt buy this idea, i wouldn’t mind collab with a
developer. This is really a simple service with UNLIMITED POTENTIALS!!!

reply
Michael Jung (@michaeljung) – December 2nd, 2009 at 10:10 am PST
+1 MA

PS: I nominated already 2 days ago. See here: michaelj…companies-for-a

reply
Prudhvi Dhulipalla – December 2nd, 2009 at 12:36 am PST
Also the deal may not be at such a huge discount,merchants can still offer at
whatever they can afford

reply
Tweet in 81 different languages (@twitlan) – December 2nd, 2009 at 12:25 am PST
I would say this idea is most probably out of box..

They are sure to succeed

reply
Prudhvi Dhulipalla – December 2nd, 2009 at 12:35 am PST
Awesome idea … love it..

reply
Yannick (@yanroux) – December 2nd, 2009 at 12:42 am PST
Any hint on their expansion plans once they are in every US city @arrington?

reply
Nikolay Kolev (@nikolay) – December 2nd, 2009 at 1:17 am PST
They need to lower their fee to 10-15% in order to become mass market (there’s
roughly 3% in credit card processing fees). 30-50% will keep them niche.

reply
jd – December 2nd, 2009 at 12:55 am PST
Demand aggregation was always a good idea but MobShop and Mercata weren’t
clever enough.

reply
Divyang (@goospoos) – December 2nd, 2009 at 12:58 am PST
Question of scalability.

reply
Sammy – December 2nd, 2009 at 1:29 am PST
Have been a Groupon user for a few months. Love it. And there are subtleties to
it:

a. As MA says, customer acquisition (bucket this into marketing expenses) is a
huge thing for most small businesses. SMBs will happily pay the upfront cost.

b. Hidden profit margins: At a typical restaurant where I buy I Groupon, I
spend more than the Groupon amount. And that more than helps the merchant make
up. A recent Luna Park groupon for $25 off $50 had us spend $90 above and
beyond the initial $25.

c. Non-redemptions: A certain percentage of groupons will not be used. This
goes straight to the merchant’s bottom line.

Many other subtleties to the model, I am sure. Though not sure why they had to
go the VC route – sounds like a great cash business in itself.

reply
capital – December 2nd, 2009 at 11:24 am PST
Capital allows faster expansion and provides the avenue to scale to prevent
entrants coming in with a lot of money to flush them out. Another reason is to
open the company up for the possibility of an acquisition … ebay, amazon, and
the likes would have an interest to expand their e-commerce offerrings.

reply
Aniq Rahman (@anrahman) – December 2nd, 2009 at 2:02 am PST
Amazing. Congrats!

reply
Aniq Rahman (@anrahman) – December 2nd, 2009 at 2:03 am PST
Btw – I think this is exactly how foursquare should proceed.

reply
cease – December 2nd, 2009 at 2:12 am PST
this is a really awesome idea.. the local aspect and woot like limitability
make it really unique.

reply
Fabio (@fabiodebe) – December 2nd, 2009 at 2:21 am PST
Like others here I was a bit shocked too in reading that they keep 30-50% of
the price paid by the user. Surely the idea is interesting and has potential.
There’s a huge potential for a massive number of copycats and the real
competition will be played by a small number of big companies I believe.
Regional availability, variety of the offer and price being the 3 main key
drivers for the users and fees + reach those relevant for service providers.

Woot should probably give this business a go too! Moving from products to
services shouldn’t be too difficult and they definitely already have reach and
sales people.

reply
David Evans (@daveevans) – December 2nd, 2009 at 5:45 am PST
I don’t think regional makes a difference, as long as the sales team is decent,
lots of companies are calling Groupon, no the other way around. We now have
several copycats in Boston, all poor imitations competing based on taking less
of a %.

reply
Oflife (@Oflife) – December 2nd, 2009 at 2:36 am PST
There was a similar service like this a long time ago from one of the Microsoft
founders. I always thought it a great idea, but it didn’t take off. Perhaps
they were ahead of their time?

Groupon seems like it has arrived on time thanks to the advent of web 2.0
functionality that wasn’t ‘in’ a decade or so ago limiting the concept’s
scaleability.

reply
Tim Kilroy (@timkilroy) – December 2nd, 2009 at 2:46 am PST
Groupon is a great service. I became a customer of a store because of
Groupon…saved $50 on my initial purchase…but have spent 3x the savings in
the first 2 months. A similar service is Buy With Me…they have partnerships
with local news sites (like Boston.com). The difference between these sites and
Mercata is that these sites are focused on either niche products or local
services rather than mainstream products (like TVs, etc). These are truly great
services that help me discover unique services. Since they are local, they help
me become more involved with local businesses…which is a great thing.

reply
Alex Trup (@AlexTrup) – December 2nd, 2009 at 3:13 am PST
This is a business model/idea that has operated successfully in China for a
number of year where it’s called “Group Buying” (“Tuángòu” / “团购”).
Wikipedia has an intro to it – en.wikip…rg/wiki/Tuangou

reply
The Online Backup Guru (@backupguru) – December 2nd, 2009 at 3:46 am PST
A new way to save big $$$, this is great idea, allows consumers to purchase and
get bulk rates. Grab you friends.

reply
Chris Savage (@csavage) – December 2nd, 2009 at 4:57 am PST
Mike, another company to check out in this space is buywithme.com . They have a
similar approach and model.

They started in Boston and have had many great deals. You should check them out!

reply
My Locator ® – December 2nd, 2009 at 5:18 am PST
40%-90% discounts minus 30%-50% total price paid for service. whats left. 30m
for what? how hard would it be for any major social network to create a feature
plugin to give the same offers? Facepon? Twitpon? Mypon?

reply
Brad – December 2nd, 2009 at 5:40 am PST
You, my sir, are an idiot. Will you save everyone the hassle of reading your
nonsense hating on each and every product or service that is written about? Is
‘My Locator’ bringing in $30 mill in revenue this year?

How many successful website owners do you see spamming/hating on every
Techcrunch post? I would imagine many feel the same as me, I’ll never even
bother looking at your site/services because you come off as such a tool. Daily.

Hope this helps.

reply
Dave – December 2nd, 2009 at 10:28 am PST
+1 for Brad

Even if the My Locator family of crap was actually worth using, I’d never use
something that was run by someone who devotes so much time to hating on other
peoples’ ideas.

reply
Ivailo – December 3rd, 2009 at 6:46 am PST
+1

reply
kevin – December 2nd, 2009 at 5:19 am PST
i wonder if this is sustainable beyond first time novelty users, and if their
first mover advantage is enough to keep out the competition, because the idea
is utterly trivial to copy. this is the local version of mobshop (or whatever
it was called) which was equally awesome but flamed out.

reply
Justyn (@justyn) – December 2nd, 2009 at 8:32 am PST
The success of this company is all about execution. The “idea” might be easy to
copy, but the tipping point which Groupon has achieved requires a good deal of
effort/timing/marketing. Hundreds of companies have copied Twitter, none of
them have worked. There’s also 100+ employees, a ton of revenue and a big sales
staff. That in itself is a huge barrier to entry.

reply
Be careful with Groupon – December 2nd, 2009 at 5:28 am PST
.Um, this thing is started by a guy Barron’s called a “huckster” in 2007. His
name’s Eric P. Lefkofsky, and according to Barron’s, he has “left a trail of
burned investors and fraud allegations” at his companies. Barron’s even had an
email from Lefkofsky in which he encouraged his team to “be WILDLY positive in
our forecasts.”

Check out the article yourself. Search for “Barron’s Lefkofsky.” You can even
read his response to the article. Then, you can decide for yourself if you want
to give him your credit card info.

reply
Marty Tibbitts – December 2nd, 2009 at 6:14 am PST
I like this idea, but as others have pointed out, it can only work (as is) with
businesses that have ridiculously high profits margins, or where add-on
purchases or full-profit repeat business are a significant part of the profit
model.

So for businesses looking for ignition marketing, it could be a winner, but
otherwise? We’ll see…

reply
Morgan Warstler (@morganwarstler) – December 2nd, 2009 at 6:19 am PST
The thing is damn genius. It’s like crack. As somebody new to Austin, it has
made finding new things to do, infinitely easier. Definitely more fun.

reply
Blue Sail Creative (@madebybluesail) – December 2nd, 2009 at 6:55 am PST
I think its smart in the short term but I dont know how the market doesn’t
automatically correct this. Eventually people will realize that the mob price
IS the price, and that they should drive the price even lower.

It would be devastating to the supply side economy and it would become more of
a consumer driven economy where people work harder/longer for less and less.

reply
Ryan Graves (@ryangraves) – December 2nd, 2009 at 7:16 am PST
we interviewed Andrew Masonwhen he was about 1 month into the point…

actionst…on-thepointcom/

wow, and congrats on his huge successes.

reply
Matt Hunter (@matthunter) – December 2nd, 2009 at 8:31 am PST
“whtaever”

reply
AndreaF – December 2nd, 2009 at 9:01 am PST
Great service. When are they coming to Europe?

reply
soiebrute – December 2nd, 2009 at 9:46 am PST
Thanks for the article, but there are so many typos…doesn’t TechCrunch employ
proofreaders?

reply
Kim (@pigsareflying) – December 2nd, 2009 at 10:21 am PST
I live in NYC and have found that GroupOn deals can be a little touristy (ie
Botanical Gardens) – it’s apparent they don’t live here. There’s a similar
model here called Scoop St. that features deals I actually use.
www.scoopst.com/

reply
Lindsey (@theschwalb) – December 2nd, 2009 at 1:12 pm PST
I’m in Washington DC and a good amount of our deals are “touristy” too. If they
look like something I’d enjoy doing with out-of-town visitors, I typically buy
them anyway (as long as they don’t have a looming expiration date). It’s always
nice to be able to do something a little different with the tourists, plus it’s
something I probably wouldn’t have tried otherwise so it’s fun exposure for me
too.

reply
Juvaly – December 2nd, 2009 at 11:51 am PST
“Their user acquisition costs? zero.”

Not accurate – they do offer a $10 referral fee. A fair share of the fee they
collect for the average offers.

Still a great business!

reply
Brian – December 5th, 2009 at 2:24 pm PST
Agreed.

Groupon is spending a TON of money on online ads.

reply
Dan – December 2nd, 2009 at 4:12 pm PST
Really interesting space – starting to transform local business advertising and
turning it upside down.

I’m in Los Angeles, and a friend just passed along a seemingly similar site:
http//www.SwoopOff.com

reply
Brent Harrison (@smokejumper) – December 3rd, 2009 at 11:53 am PST
Thanks Mike for the coverage.

Here is my blog post on a small merchant’s perspective on Groupon:
bit.ly/6q5O2O

Cheers,
Brent

reply
Joseph (@jos3ph) – December 3rd, 2009 at 3:55 pm PST
Great post, Brent. Nice to hear from an actual business user’s perspective
rather than the typical TC prognosticator.

reply
scott – December 3rd, 2009 at 1:55 pm PST
does anyone know what commission they charge businesses?

reply
Joseph (@jos3ph) – December 3rd, 2009 at 3:52 pm PST
Y’all remember when we found out Etsy made a billion dollars a year, but the
customer base was 99% women so we had no idea?

In my experience, Groupon’s demographic is quite similar. My fiance is totally
hooked and buys and shares a painful percentage of the daily deals emailed to
her here in Austin to the point that I’ve considered secretly unsubscribing her
from their mailing list. It’s crazy.

reply
yeahno – December 3rd, 2009 at 5:49 pm PST
Yeah, Etsy doesn’t make a billion dollars a year.

reply
Michael Imbleau – December 4th, 2009 at 7:53 pm PST
At first glance this concept looks brilliant. But I wonder if it actually only
works from a consumer standpoint. Does this work from a merchant perspective?
Yes a store wants to sell volumes of inventory…but do they want to hold back.
By waiting for group purchases, do they just delay sales (and potentially lose
customers)?

reply
Josh – December 5th, 2009 at 3:44 pm PST
Another one from Chicago! Everybody I know uses Groupon, maybe some of you
Valley guys should spending some more time out in the mid-west.

reply
hhh – December 6th, 2009 at 2:56 pm PST
Ridiculous. This is years old. This company also started in 2008? That is the
thing with people. People are not creative and just copy the people who had the
creativity and action to reach for their dreams asap. Usually just get in the
way – by diluting the originators effect and temporarily distracting but
fortunately short lived most of the time. Not everyone is an ENTREPRENEUR. Once
the masses start doing it, time to move on and create another innovation.

reply
_____________________________________
Tuesday, December 15: MIT-EF holiday party

From: MIT Enterprise Forum of Chicago mailer@mail2.clubexpress.com
Sender: mailer@mail2.clubexpress.com
Subject: MIT EF Dec. 15 Event: Holiday Party at Catalyst Ranch!!!
Date: Tue, 08 Dec 2009 13:47:49 -0600
To: claire@themayreport.com

The Global Entrepreneurial Network: Connect. Inspire. Succeed.
Holiday Party, Dec. 15

http:\www.mitefchicago.org
Our Host Sponsor

Effective March 1, 2009, Bell, Boyd & Lloyd LLP combined
with K&L Gates LLP.

For more information, please visit www.klgates.com.

Membership

Become a Member
Renew Membership
Send email to: info@mitefchicago.org
Become a Volunteer

Our Sponsors
Here-ye! Here-ye!
Come join us for networking, fun and door prizes!

It’s been a great year so far, so join your MIT Enterprise Forum friends for
some festivities and fun at the Catalyst Ranch.

MIT EF Chicago will provide appetizers, holiday spirits and unique
entertainment. And don’t forget, we’ll be giving away door prizes.

REGISTER

When
Tuesday December 15
6:00-9:00 pm

Where
Catalyst Ranch (Polka Room)

656 W. Randolph, Suite 3W

Chicago, IL 60661

www.catalystranch.com

Cost

Free to members; $30 advance payment for non-members/guest; $40 for
non-member/guest after Dec. 14
___________________________________________
Ned Heizer was early but by no means the first

From: HARVEYT820@aol.com
Subject: Re: The May Report: 12/08/2009: The father of venture capital in
Chicago and maybe even the whole country is dead at 80; Too many events coming
up; ITA board meeting Wednesday morning
Date: Tue, 8 Dec 2009 19:07:05 EST
To: ron@themayreport.com

re ned heizer. he was an early venture guy (and a difficult one) but he was by
no means the first. i would name draper, gaither and anderson, of palo alto, ca
as one of the evry early ones. i believe they strated up in the 1950″s
_____________________________________
QuesTek Wins Three SBIR Phase I Awards to Design and Develop Alloys

From: Rich Kooy rkooy@questek.com
Subject: News Release – QuesTek Wins Three SBIR Phase I Awards to Design and
Develop Alloys
Date: Tue, 8 Dec 2009 18:36:37 -0600
To: ron@themayreport.com

Hi Ron,

This news was released today by QuesTek, and may interest you or your readers.

Regards,

Rich

Rich Kooy, P.E.

Director of Sales and Marketing

QuesTek Innovations LLC

1820 Ridge Avenue, Evanston, IL USA 60201

Office Tel 847-425-8213 | Cell 847-528-5016

rkooy@questek.com | www.questek.com

QUESTEK WINS THREE SBIR PHASE I AWARDS TO DESIGN AND DEVELOP ALLOYS

QuesTek will Design and Develop Three New Alloys to

Address Compelling Energy, Aerospace, Environmental and Operational Needs

EVANSTON, IL, Dec. 8, 2009 – QuesTek Innovations LLC was recently awarded three
Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) projects to design and
develop new alloys for the U.S. Department of Energy and the Office of Naval
Research. The awards expand QuesTek’s on-going record of innovation for
governmental and commercial entities. The three recent project awards are:

1. “Computational Design of Oxidation- and Creep-Resistant Niobium Superalloys
for High Temperature Turbine Applications” awarded by the U.S. Department of
Energy. QuesTek will design and develop oxidation- and creep-resistant
niobium-based superalloys to enable high temperature turbines to operate with
metal temperatures of 1,300°C (2,372°F) and above. Land-based turbines
operating at these high temperatures could achieve far higher efficiencies and
lower CO2 emissions than current equipment, and could further the development
of Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) hydrogen-fueled,
very-low-emission gas turbines and ultra-high-temperature steam turbines.
Commercial and military aerospace turbine engines using these superalloys could
also achieve significant gains in efficiency and performance output at these
high operating temperatures. This is a nine-month, $99,967 SBIR program.

2. “Computational Design of Cost-Effective, Oxidation- and Creep-Resistant
Alloys for Coal-Fired Power Plants” awarded by the U.S. Department of Energy.
QuesTek will design and develop novel, cost-effective alloys for advanced
ultra-supercritical power plants with steam temperatures of 760°C (1,400°F).
QuesTek will investigate and assess three novel new microstructural concepts
by: using robust, proprietary computational models to design novel new
compositions; manufacturing prototype ingots of select materials at an
intermediate scale; and performing physical tests to demonstrate the ability of
the new materials to address creep strength, thermal fatigue, oxidation
resistance and other properties. Increasing the steam temperature of advanced
ultra-supercritical boilers can raise the operating efficiency of
next-generation coal-fired power plants and address compelling environmental
issues. This is a nine-month, $99,936 SBIR program.

3. “Computational Design of High-Strength, Anodize-Free Stainless Aluminum
Alloys for Aerospace Applications” awarded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research
and solicited by the Office of the Secretary of Defense. QuesTek will design
and develop a new high-strength, anodize-free stainless aluminum alloy that
will have intrinsic corrosion behavior similar to anodized 7xxx alloys and
mechanical properties equivalent to non-anodized 7075-T6 alloy. Most aerospace
aluminum alloys are anodized in order to enhance corrosion resistance, but
anodization can reduce fatigue strength by as much as 40% and typically
generates a hazardous waste stream. QuesTek will use its state-of-the-art
computational design tools, custom thermodynamic and kinetic databases,
microstructural evolution models, physics-based strength models, solidification
process simulations, and stress-corrosion cracking models. Naval aerospace,
commercial aviation, marine structures and other applications are expected to
benefit from this new alloy. This is a six-month, $99,995 SBIR program.

Charlie Kuehmann, President and CEO of QuesTek, commented: “We appreciate these
awards from the DOE, the ONR and the OSD to design and develop next-generation,
high-performance materials. These projects build upon our record of material
design successes for energy, aerospace and other industries, such as our Ferrium® C61™
and Ferrium C64™ alloys for applications such as high-power-density,
high-durability power transmission and our Ferrium S53® ultra-high-strength,
corrosion-resistant alloy for applications such as aircraft landing gear.”

ABOUT QUESTEK

QuesTek Innovations LLC (www.questek.com) is a global leader in computational
materials design. QuesTek uses its proprietary Materials by Design® expertise
to quickly develop new materials that reduce capital, processing, operating or
maintenance costs, or improve environmental protection, competitive supply or
competitive advantage. QuesTek has been highlighted in many leading business
and technical publications, and has more than 30 patents awarded or pending
worldwide. For more information, contact Rich Kooy at 1-847-425-8213 or
rkooy@questek.com.
__________________________________________
END OF REPORT