Start Up

Dear Karen: I'm looking for venture capital funding for a biotech firm. Any suggestions? Answer: Don't waste your time approaching generic investment firms. "There are venture capital funding groups devoted specifically to life sciences endeavors, and such funding groups are a good starting point for biotech start-ups seeking investment dollars," said Eva Jack, managing director of venture capital firm MedImmune Ventures. And be persistent. U.S. venture capital investment fell by nearly half last year compared with 2008, according to the MoneyTree Report, a study from the National Venture Capital Assn.

SAN FRANCISCO - WhatsApp is one of Silicon Valley's most buzzed-about companies, yet it actively avoids the spotlight, operating out of a small office in Mountain View, Calif., with no sign on the building entrance or on the office door. Unlike most start-ups eager for media attention, WhatsApp Inc. says it doesn't want or need it. Its popular mobile messaging app has spread so quickly by word of mouth that in just four years it has amassed hundreds of millions of users who collectively send as many as 18 billion messages a day. WhatsApp belongs to a new generation of messaging services that are revolutionizing 20-year-old text messaging technology and escalating the mobile messaging wars.

The e-mail from an executive at Ford Motor Co. was blunt and direct. "I do not have any interest in pursuing anything," the official wrote one of the company's parts developers in Escondido earlier this year, as the auto industry was sliding into an historic meltdown. That was how tiny KVA Stainless Inc., a 5-year-old start-up working to develop lightweight, gas-saving stainless-steel components for Ford, got dumped and how it found a new direction on the shop floor. The e-mail presented a challenge for KVA founder Ed McCrink, an 88-year-old entrepreneur whose long career included developing other steel businesses and a smoke alarm company.

Serial tech investor Ashton Kutcher is backing the Hunt, a fashion start-up that makes social media photos on sites such as Pinterest and Instagram "shoppable. " The San Francisco company was created to help consumers find clothing, jewelry and other items seen in images shared on blogs, photo apps and social media platforms. It calls itself a community-driven online shopping experience. The Hunt , founded by Tim Weingarten and Simon Peck, launched in January; since then, it has grown to 1 million monthly unique visitors.

A spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Wednesday that there is no danger in restarting a reactor at the San Onofre nuclear power plant, despite the discovery of three broken bolts in the supports that hold up its "thermal shield." Greg Cook, public affairs officer for the NRC's Western office, said the NRC is prepared to allow the start-up of reactor unit No. 1 if Southern California Edison submits written documents agreeing to conditions worked out in a meeting between the utility and the NRC Monday.

The California Endowment has committed more than $95,000 to support start-up activities for the recently launched Nathaniel Anthony Ayers Foundation, it was announced Wednesday. The foundation, which bears the name of a homeless musician profiled by Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez, will support organizations that provide arts programs to the mentally ill.

A start-up automobile company plans to assemble a new fuel-efficient car in Louisiana and employ an estimated 1,400 people once production starts, state and company officials announced. San Diego-based V-Vehicle Co. will take over a vacant plant in Monroe, Gov. Bobby Jindal said. Former Oracle Corp. executive Frank Varasano, who founded V-Vehicle in 2006, said the company has applied for $340 million in loans from the federal government. Company Vice President Horst Metz said production would begin in about 18 months.

I thought I had heard it all. A leaking bottle of vodka causes evacuation of the Fluor Daniel engineering facility and requires a hazardous rescue team to treat the victims (May 14). Where are the men and women who worked in the design and start-up of chemical plants throughout the world? I hope that there are a few old engineers still there who can explain to these babies what a bottle of vodka is and what it is good for. Don Knypstra Studio City

Tom Petruno poses a number of rhetorical questions regarding the proposed capital gains tax reduction, "A Return to Rational Rates" (Jan 29): "If I risk my money in a productive business, shouldn't I be rewarded? Shouldn't one be rewarded for investing in a start-up business, or in the stock market?" I think, for most people, the answers would be yes. The key phrase here, however, is "productive business." I'm no economist, but I do know quite a number of wealthy people. And I can tell you, none of them invest in start-up businesses.

Kenneth J. Artingstall ("Understanding the Critical Role of Capital Is Essential," Letters, Aug. 3) makes a reasonably good argument for capital gains tax cuts, except he forgets that capital gains, and, yes, losses, for most individuals come from buying and selling listed stocks on the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq. I would like someone to explain how my purchase of 3M, Xerox or MCI from an unknown seller, who may have bought it only three days before, has improved economic growth or helped create jobs.

Southern California Edison has submitted a formal request to federal regulators for a license amendment that would allow the San Onofre nuclear plant to be fired back up for the first time in more than a year. Company officials told U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff at a meeting last week that they hope to have one unit at the plant -- which was shut down  because of unusual wear of steam generator tubes that carry radioactive water -- running again by June 1. The request submitted by Edison asks the NRC to make a decision on the proposed license amendment by May 24. The utility is proposing to run the plant at 70% of its current licensed power.

California is applying money-transfer laws to high-tech start-ups and others in the business of moving funds, subjecting them to the same strict regulations and heavy scrutiny as financial service companies. And that has some Silicon Valley entrepreneurs crying foul. The regulations, they say, are hobbling their ability to develop new Internet technologies that, like PayPal Inc. and Square Inc., make fast, secure payments with smartphones and tablets. FaceCash, a Palo Alto company that developed a mobile payment system using facial-recognition software, has sued the state in federal court on claims that licensing requirements discriminate against the company and hinder interstate commerce.

Tech start-ups often have to go out of their way to attract new software developers, typically by offering such perks as signing bonuses or the promise of free food and beer. Santa Monica company PaeDae, an advertising monetization platform for online and mobile apps, is aiming a bit higher. In an effort to land a top-notch developer, the start-up is offering a $5,000 cash signing bonus, a charitable donation to a nonprofit -- and the chance to win a trip to space. “We recognize that the pool of quality candidates is small and it's hard to attract top talent,” said Rob Emrich, PaeDae's co-founder and chief executive.

USC's Viterbi School of Engineering is launching an early-stage technology accelerator to help student and alumni entrepreneurs start their fledgling technology companies in the Los Angeles area. The newly created Viterbi Startup Garage is designed to foster an environment where start-ups could flourish in Southern California with financial resources and business expertise provided by the school and its partners, United Talent Agency and the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

In a move that could improve the quality of Apple Maps, the Cupertino tech company has purchased WiFiSlam, a Silicon Valley start-up that specializes in indoor mapping. Apple paid $20 million for the acquisition, saying it “buys smaller technology companies from time to time,” according to the Wall Street Journal . Apple, however, did not disclose its plans for the start-up. The 2-year-old WiFiSlam has developed technology that makes it possible for phones to detect users' locations inside buildings by using Wi-Fi signals.

It's a seasonal farmers market with a pretty spectacular view. The Yamashiro Farmers Market, organized by Yamashiro Hollywood and City Farm , starts up again this season on April 4 from 5 to 9 p.m. at the Holywood hilltop Japanese restaurant and will run every Thursday through September. Yamashiro executive chef Brock Kleweno is debuting a revamped menu of Middle Eastern-meets-Asian pitas: preserved lemon and honey chicken with pistachio-sesame sauce; merguez braised lamb with shiso tatziki; harissa shrimp with cucumber relish; and "shwarma"-marinated beef with citrus tahini.

Some of you have suggested that we ink-stained newspaper wretches seem like a bunch of charity cases. Now comes proof positive that you were (at least partly) right. Every few days in recent weeks, there's been a new report about the advance of nonprofit journalism in California. Philanthropists big and small have stepped up to fill the financial void left as advertising -- and staffing -- at traditional news outlets has withered away. Sponsors announced the biggest and most ambitious of the new nonprofit reporting endeavors last week as San Francisco venture capitalist, philanthropist and bluegrass aficionado Warren Hellman pledged $5 million to create a new journalism operation in the Bay Area.

Dear Karen: Can you give me some tips for starting a gardening business? Answer: Make sure you are passionate about gardening and knowledgeable about the industry. Be persistent in setting and meeting start-up goals. "Change can only occur when you make a conscious decision to make it happen," said Tamara Monosoff, author of a new book, "Your Million Dollar Dream." Research the top issues for gardening businesses, and write down how you will approach each one. This will be the beginning of your business plan, which you should formalize before you start.

If you are like me and spend hours trawling the Web to find the next best restaurant, travel destination or book, you might want to take a look at Qloo , a new "cultural discovery platform" that aims to make searches more personal and easier. The New York start-up, which launched in November, offers recommendations based on the user's tastes in music, film, TV, dining, nightlife, fashion, books and travel. "We are culturally much more than just your taste in an individual category," said Alex Elias, who co-founded Qloo with Jay Alger, chief executive of digital agency Deepend.

After millions of dollars were pledged just the first day of a record-breaking Kickstarter campaign for a "Veronica Mars" feature film, the popularity of crowd-funding services is sure to soar. Services such as Indiegogo and Kickstarter have already found popularity in the Los Angeles craft-beer community as brewers, would-be brewers and bar owners turn to crowd funding to overcome their dreams' initial financial hurdles. The last year has been big for brewery crowd-funding projects, but although many entrepreneurs across the country completed  successful campaigns to start brewing or expand their operations, Los Angeles-area brewers were having difficulty gaining support for their Kickstarter projects.