Borealis Ventures portfolio company Newforma recently
closed on a Series B round of funding. Participating in this over-subscribed round were existing investors Borealis Ventures, Kodiak Venture Partners, North Bridge Venture Partners, and Village Ventures. Newforma is a software development company serving the architecture, engineering, construction, and owner-operator (AECO) organizations worldwide who design, construct and operate large scale building and infrastructure projects. Newforma's software facilitates the seamless flow of information between every AECO role in support of both project and business processes.

The closing of this second round of financing capped off a busy year for the company. Throughout the year Newforma continued to leverage the Lighthouse program and its 90+ participants as a powerful tool in both validating market demand as well as refining current and future product strategy. The Lighthouse program teams Newforma with a representative group of industry leading AECO firms to collaborate in defining, developing and implementing solutions to some of the industry's key pain points. In addition, a number of Lighthouse customers have paid to deploy Newforma’s products on a project team basis under Newforma’s Fast Start program.

Commercial launch is set for the end of Q1, 2006. In step with its product launch the company has shifted more focus to its go-to-market strategies and welcomed new executive team members Marni Hoyle as the Vice President of Marketing and Vic Sanchez as the VP of Sales to lead those efforts.

At Borealis we are proud of the progress that Newforma has experienced since its start as a group of founders with just an idea in 2003, to formal start-up and initial engineering work in 2004, followed by the delivery of the first two versions of product built by its team of over 30 professionals in 2005. Now, it's time to go to market!

Borealis Ventures announces the return of Peak Pitch, an event that gives entrepreneurs and investors a chance to network on the slopes. The success of Peak Pitch ‘05 in linking Northern New England’s distinctive natural assets with its entrepreneurial culture and business community has motivated Peak Pitch founder and series organizer Borealis Ventures to expand the program for 2006.

Peak Pitch brings entrepreneurs and investors together for a uniquely Northern New England version of the classic "elevator pitch." In the traditional elevator pitch, entrepreneurs take advantage of an unexpected opportunity to share an elevator ride with a potential investor and present their business idea. At Peak Pitch, a shared chairlift is substituted for the elevator, giving entrepreneurs the opportunity to pitch their business plans to a variety of venture capitalists, angel investors, commercial lenders, and other entrepreneurial advisors as they ride together up a mountain on a high-speed chair lift.

The Peak Pitch ’06 program will include a series of events co-organized with local hosts to support entrepreneurial communities across Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. Local hosts include FreshTracks Capital, the Mt. Washington Valley Economic Council, and the NH Advantage Foundation.