Video as a Service: Smartvue seeks Angels, gives Hapner new wings
Milt Capps Updated 0827 June 19
Smartvue Corporation is not just cutting product costs and refreshing its intelligent video-surveillance technology – the company is also raising a second round of Angel capital and has hired Beacon Technologies CEO and Co-Founder Bill Hapner as vice president for sales.
On Tuesday, Smartvue CEO Marty Renkis told VNC the company is well along in securing the $1.5 million in Series B Round funding it has sought during the past year. He said he believes this round, which is actually authorized up to $2 million, will close by year's-end. Smartvue has been executing a "rolling close," he explained, using investments incrementally as they arrive, in order to accelerate manufacture and launch of next-generation Smartvue S8 technology and services. Roughly three years ago, Smartvue raised $1.5 million in A-round angel capital. At that time, investors from Nashville Capital Network played a key role. Back then, Renkis regularly said the company should reach $100 million in revenue, well before now. Yesterday, Renkis readily acknowledged that Smartvue revenue is "over a million dollars, but it's under 10." Renkis said subsequent changes in key suppliers and offshoring of technology development have dramatically reduced costs, even while the company added product features and functions. Renkis said the forthcoming S8 package will sell for no more than a third the cost of earlier models, closer to the costs of traditional hard-wired cameras with less functionality and flexibility. Given Renkis' resolve, Hapner's mission is clear: Rapidly ramp-up Smartvue sales, building on such customers as Lehman During discussion with VNC yesterday, Renkis stressed that 18 Nashville angels who have invested in Smartvue have provided "about 75 percent" of capital raised by the company and have been crucial to sustaining the company he formed a decade ago.
"There's no way I could be where I am today, without [local investors'] support," Renkis told VNC. "The interest and the level of enthusiasm that the local investment community has for new businesses -- at least from my personal expeirence -- has been extremely positive," he added. Renkis has run the venture gauntlet before. Over a 10-year-period ending in 2002, Renkis created, grew and then sold an e-learning company, Trainersoft, to Boston-based and VC-funded OutStart. By the time of its sale, Trainersoft had won a rung among the Inc. 500 and a place among Deloitte & Touche's Fast Tech 50. Terms of that deal were not disclosed. TrainerSoft was conceived in Nashville. However, in order to support his wife's pursuit of a degree at the University of North Carolina, the company relocated to North Carolina's Research Triangle Park area, from which Renkis operated until the company's sale. Renkis noted that while in North Carolina he enjoyed the support of what he considers the nation's "leading high-tech entrepreneurial support network," including an incubator dubbed First Flight Venture Center. Renkis started Smartvue in 1998, with a focus on video security for homes. By 2002, the company had shifted to its current commercial security and business intelligence posture. Renkis' e-learning and surveillance ventures have each capitalized on Renkis' early career as a film-maker and -editor, and his love of finding ways to simplify computing, e-learning and surveillance systems.
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