Financiers Attracted by Dr. Drew Brand.

A cocktail party and a frenzied morning in a suburban family's home were the key events that led to the $6 million investment from Softbank Capital Ventures in health and lifestyle Web company DrDrew.com.

In late 1999, Heidi Roizen, managing director for Softbank's current technology fund, was attending a party for Garage.com. The company helps entrepreneurs find investors and had helped DrDrew.com secure $1 million in seed funding in early 1999.

"I said to Guy (Kawasaki, CEO of Garage.com), 'If you had one deal that you think I should look at, what would it be?'" Roizen recalled. "He said DrDrew.com."

At that time, Roizen hadn't heard of "Dr. Drew" Pinsky, a practicing physician who had found fame with the under-30 set as co-host of the radio and television relationship advice show "Loveline."

"I went around for a week asking anyone between the ages of 18 and 30 that I ran into if they knew who he was," Roizen said. "Everyone I asked knew him."

Meanwhile, DrDrew.com Chief Executive Curtis Geisen was seeking additional funding for the company, which runs a youth-targeted Web site offering physical and mental health advice, including a live Internet advice show and celebrity interviews.

Just days after the cocktail party, Roizen invited Geisen to meet at her home in Atherton, an upscale Silicon Valley community. "I had him come to my house, because our office was under construction," Roizen said.

Geisen, a close friend of Pinsky's since the seventh grade, had pitched the company to nearly 200 potential investors or partners in less than two years, but says this particular meeting stood out.

"We get to the house, I get out of the cab and get attacked by a dog," he said. "Then I'm in the kitchen, and it's 'Leave it to Beaver.' Her husband's there, the kids are at the table eating breakfast. It was love at first sight."

Sitting on a couch in Roizen's high-ceilinged living room, Geisen pitched to a group that included Roizen, her co-worker Pete Hartigan, a physician friend of Roizen's who could talk about the site's health-related issues, 4-year-old Marleyna Roizen, and dogs Rocket and Ramjet, who scoured the floor for bagel crumbs.

After the meeting, Roizen e-mailed partners in Japan and lined up a meeting with Geisen and Pinsky. Within a week, Softbank's partners were meeting in the fund's Silicon Valley office with the heads of DrDrew.com.

Though financials were important, Softbank officials focused more on intangibles.

Softbank investors wanted to see a strong plan, not so much on the financial side, but a creative product that could last in today's fickle marketplace.

Geisen highlighted market factors that favored DrDrew.com.

"Two years ago, the fact that we had a known brand in Dr. Drew was like, 'Big deal,'" Geisen said. "There was still a sense that you could build a Yahoo or Amazon.com. Now that's seen as so powerful. People understand you need an online brand."

While Geisen had been the lead negotiator with nearly 200 potential investors, he had only invited Pinsky to a few of the most serious meetings.

"I wasn't thoroughly convinced we wanted venture capital. I needed to know why," Pinsky recalled. "I said, 'We've got a brand and a business model and a way to sustain ourselves.' We had all kinds of ideas we were considering to raise money. I guess they weren't used to that."

But his hesitation didn't negatively impact the deal or the meeting.

"With most venture capitalists, what they're there to do is make you feel not good. Ask any entrepreneur," Geisen said. "But Heidi had this group teed up. There was a very positive vibe. So we pitched for an hour, and then within days, we had a term sheet and the deal was done."

The $6 million figure was determined through a collaborative effort.

"It was a negotiation, as all investments are, to figure out how much the company was worth at that time and how much we wanted to own," Roizen said. "We shoot for 20 percent."

DrDrew.com executives were seeking investments totaling $7.5 million and ended up with just over that amount, thanks to the $6 million from Softbank and additional funds from previous investors and new angel investors.

Now, after working with Softbank and seeing that the fund's hands-on approach is helping, Pinsky is a venture capital convert.

"What a dilettante I was, and how much I've learned," he said. "We needed that kind of capital to get this thing off the ground quickly."

The company is now seeking what is expected to be its final round of funding.

DrDrew.com

Santa Monica 

CORE BUSINESS:

Health and relationship advice for the under-30 set

MAIN VENTURE BACKER:

Softbank Venture Capital

AMOUNT INVESTED:

$6 million