Welcome to our February Newsletter, which includes:
Meet Our Latest Anchor Investor
Meet Our Newest Portfolio Companies
Fund I Update
Mr. Spann Meets Mr. Wonderful
BSV Venture Studio Update
More Resources for Our Portfolio Companies
We hope you enjoy this issue!
Meet Our Latest Anchor Investor
Earlier this month we announced that OGE Energy Corp. Foundation is our latest anchor investor in Fund I. The investment was made through a recoverable grant to our Boyd Street Endowment Fund, which we created to support startups led by minority, female and SEDI (socially and economically disadvantaged individuals) founders.
As OG&E's Zac Gladhill said in our news release, “Investing in Boyd Street Ventures through the Foundation ensures that we are driving innovation and entrepreneurial endeavors right here at home. Supporting entrepreneurs who want to grow businesses and communities in our state will generate real returns that benefit all of us.”
OGE Energy Corp. Foundation joins OCAST (the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science & Technology), Bank of America and Gateway First Bancorp as major institutional investors who have chosen to support our mission to identify, fund and guide under-the-radar companies and founders who too often are overlooked by the large East and West Coast VC firms.
Meet Our Two Newest Portfolio Companies
Speaking of great under-the-radar investments, we're pleased to announce our two newest ones. Meet HeartCloud and VinSense, both of which - true to our mission of driving jobs and economic growth in our home state - are relocating from California to Oklahoma. This brings the number of companies in our portfolio to 15.
HeartCloud is a digital healthcare innovator that is singularly focused on digital healthcare technologies and revenue cycle management. The company has launched a one-of-a-kind platform that helps medical practices leverage data collected by wearable digital health hardware to improve patient clinical care plans and outcomes while increasing productivity and profitability. At the same time, HeartCloud’s platform helps address the significant financial and productivity challenges increasingly being faced by medical practices.
The potential of remote patient monitoring to significantly enhance the health and reduce hospitalization rates of chronically ill patients has been acknowledged by the Department of Health & Human Services, the National Institutes of Health, the American Medical Association, the American Heart Association, and the Mayo Clinic.
What's been missing is a sophisticated platform that allows medical practices to efficiently access and analyze the tremendous amount of remotely-generated data that is now available to them from a wide range of wearable devices, to enable them to effortlessly interact with both patients and insurers, and to provide a new revenue stream to offset growing financial and productivity challenges. HeartCloud IS that platform, and in fact the company is generating impressive results with its current customer base.
We're co-leading a Series A-1 raise to generate funding for HeartCloud to significantly expand its market presence. The company will be moving its headquarters from Southern California to Oklahoma City,
For more information on HeartCloud, please clickhere.
VinSenseaddresses the serious challenges faced by crop growers caused by climate change and rising costs of water, labor, fertilizers and other resources, It's breakthrough technology transforms soil data, microdata, historical data and precision soil maps into intuitive, easy-to-use visual information to increase the effectiveness of the decisions growers make throughout the season. This allows growers to optimize water and resource management to achieve the best possible combination of quantity, quality, uniformity and cost from their crops.
VinSense's initial focus is on wine grapes, but long term plans include expanding into numerous other crop categories. The company's current customers include numerous California and Washington wineries, including Robert Biale Vineyards, Cakebread Cellars, Francis Ford Coppola Winery, Ridge Vineyards, and Silver Oak.
VinSense will be moving its headquarters from Northern Californa to Norman, where co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Dr. David Ebert is Gallogly Chair Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Director of the Data Institute for Societal Challenges.
For more information on VinSense, please clickhere.
Fund I Update
In addition to the two new investments described above, we've made several follow-on investments during the past two months. We also expect to make at least two more new and/or follow-on investments during the next two months.
Please note that the final close of our Fund I will be March 31, 2024. If you're interested in making an investment - or increasing your investment - in Fund I, please schedule a call with BSV Founder & General Partner James Spann by clicking here to email his Executive Assistant lick, Eliza McCloy.
You can also access our Investor Portal by clicking here.
Mr. Spann Meets Mr. Wonderful
Several weeks ago, BSV Founder & General Partner James Spann was honored to attend a dinner hosted by Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt in the Governor's Mansion. The guest of honor was renowned investor Kevin O'Leary, "Mr. Wonderful" of TV's Shark Tank and founder of O'Leary Ventures.
The reason for the event was to celebrate the fact that Mr. O'Leary chose Oklahoma to kick off his "Competitive State Tour." His mission is to call attention to the importance of investing in entrepreneur-friendly, pro-business states that offer competitive taxes and attractive permit policies for large projects.
Below is a photo of James, Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science & Technology Executive Director Jennifer McGrail, and Kevin O'Leary.
That conversation has led to several meetings between BSV and O'Leary Ventures about potential collaboration in the future. Stay tuned!
A BSV Venture Studio Update
The BSV Venture Studio plays a critical role in optimizing the value of our portfolio. Our new BSV Venture Studio Advisory Board is available to our portfolio companies to impart de-risking strategic and operational guidance that can reduce their odds of costly errors, speed their time to market, and increase their ability to scale. Here are our Board members:
While many VCs are content to take a "sit back and watch" approach with their investments, we feel we have an obligation to our portfolio companies - and our investors - to get our Board and our Management Team involved in doing whatever we can to help maximize their success.
More Resources for Our Portfolio Companies
Our portfolio companies will also be able to benefit from James's being named to the 2024 EY Entrepreneurs Access Network cohort. EAN is a business accelerator program created to support founders of Black- and Hispanic/Latino-owned companies, and James was the only VC founder among the 36 entrepreneurs named to this elite group.
This is particularly important news for our portfolio companies, who will be able to benefit from James's access to the exceptional growth resources of EY's extensive entrepreneurial ecosystem.
We look forward to taking full advantage of this unique opportunity for learning, partnering and collaborating to help our exceptional portfolio companies achieve their very impressive and exciting potential.
