Conference Boosts New Link In Britain-to-Boston Connection By Bringing Together UK Entrepreneurs And New England Venture Capitalists.

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 11, 1999--

More than 20 British high-tech entrepreneurs presented their business plans to New England venture capitalists during a conference at the British consulate here. The one-day conference was designed to help forge new links in a Boston-to-Britain business relationship that began with the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, an English joint-stock venture, in the early 1600s.

"For most of the last four centuries, capital has flowed west across the Atlantic to New England. Merchants in London and Glasgow financed our commerce in the 1700s. British venture capital built our railroads a century later. But now the tables have turned," said J. Scott Burns, a London-based attorney for Brown, Rudnick, Freed & Gesmer, an international law firm based in Boston. "The Yankees are coming to the UK-and they're investing in hot high-tech companies when they arrive."

Brown Rudnick co-sponsored the conference, along with the British Consulate-General, Fleet Financial Group, PricewaterhouseCoopers and the New England Council. The business plan presentations followed a luncheon featuring remarks by Andrew J. Fraser, chief executive of the Invest in Britain Bureau, Michael S. Fields, chairman and chief executive of The Fields Group, and Jim Brett, chief executive officer of the New England Council.

British venture capitalist Edward Stacey, investment director of Venture Technologies Ltd., brought representatives of five early-stage technology companies to the conference with him from London. Stacey said Britain has come far since the days when its scientists made breakthroughs in important technologies-jet engines and computers, to name two-but saw others commercialize their innovations due to insufficient public or private support. Today, he says, university researchers at Cambridge, Southampton and Imperial College are heeding the lessons of their MIT and Stanford counterparts and bringing their ideas to market successfully.

"We have a long history of innovation and a short history of making money," Stacey said. "But now that we've put that quaint, ivory tower attitude behind us, we lack funding. The US is a natural place to turn because of its vast market and high-tech know-how."

Ironically, Britain's venture capital sector is by far the biggest and most developed in Europe-accounting for nearly half the annual venture funding on the continent. Last year, worldwide investment by UK venture capital firms increased by 18%, according to the British Venture Capital Association, a trade group. But British venture firms still lag their US counterparts: Relative to GDP, they invested only one-third the amount in high-technology companies last year as venture firms in the United States.

Bill Collatos, a managing general partner of Spectrum Equity Investors of Boston and Palo Alto, said the UK offers New England venture capitalists a beachhead into Western Europe. In 1997, Spectrum invested in Internet Network Services, Ltd., a Wimbledon-based Internet service provider for businesses that is growing at the rate of 100% a year.

"Britain is a natural place for us to export market knowledge we have developed in the States," he says. "England is more competitive than Europe. It's English-speaking, and it has a more developed venture capital community. We see a lot of deals there."

With 150 professionals in offices in New England and London, UK, Brown, Rudnick, Freed & Gesmer is a full-service law firm that specializes in business, financial services, litigation, health care, real estate and intellectual property law. The firm provides services to large and small businesses, government entities, public utilities, non-profit organizations and individuals.