Newport Beach-based The Venture Alliance hopes to cash in on the reality TV craze.
Venture Alliance has teamed with Santa Monica-based Live Planet and Hollywood producer and director Luis Barreto to develop a pilot for a reality program based on finding venture capital.
Live Planet principals include actors Matt Damon and Ben Affleck; Barreto’s credits include episodes of “Celebrity Mole” and “Extreme Makeover Home Edition.”
The Venture Alliance helps entrepreneurs apply for venture and angel funding by creating a standard application process. It also helps startup founders create business models that are attractive to venture investors.
“We help them short-circuit the old-boy network and create a level playing field,” said Elliot Reiff, chief operating officer of Venture Alliance.
The company acts as a referral service for entrepreneurs through its application process that creates a “venture score” for each startup, Reiff said. The venture score reflects a company’s readiness for funding.
Companies that meet minimum score requirements make presentations in a “competition” for funding, Reiff said. That was the hook for Hollywood.
John Hadley, Venture Alliance vice president of sales, approached Live Planet with the idea, citing the popularity of the Trump show, “The Apprentice” as evidence of the public’s interest in business ventures.
“We saw that Hollywood needed to go beyond an expertise in casting to do this kind of show,” he said.
So Venture Alliance offered to bring companies with viable venture scores to the show.
In the pilot episode filmed before Thanksgiving at Shady Canyon Golf Club, a Culver City beverage company and a Maryland medical device maker vied for funding. Results weren’t available.
Hadley said the concept for the show already has been sold to a cable TV network.
“We hope the program will help educate people about what they need to do to secure venture funding,” Reiff said.
Wheels on the Road
Blue C Communications in Newport Beach has been wheeling and dealing in Las Vegas.
Earlier this month, the ad shop launched promotions for American Racing Equipment Inc. of Rancho Dominguez at the Specialty Equipment Market Association show in Las Vegas.
The promos for the wheel maker focused on its new tagline: “Perform.” They included a DVD on vintage wheels featuring Billy F. Gibbons, guitarist for ZZ Top, and an appearance by ESPN/ABC announcer Cameron Steele,a trophy truck racer,that touted American Racing’s ATX series of off-road wheels.
The Specialty Equipment Market Association trip was a sample of things to come for Las Vegas-based clients.
The 15-person Blue C shop also has landed work for MGM Mirage, the Las Vegas-based holding company that owns and operates 14 casinos. The work will feature a tie-in promotion with Visa International and the Kentucky Derby.
And the Fremont Street Experience signed on with Blue C for advertising and event promotion,including radio and print,for the New Year’s Eve gala that attracts about 20,000 in downtown Las Vegas.
Blue C ranked No. 25 on the most recent Business Journal list of advertising agencies, with 2003 OC capitalized billings of $15 million.
More Integrity
It’s a sign of better economic times when advertising agencies and public relations firms are taking on a lot of new work. It’s an even better sign when they expand their operations.
For Mission Viejo-based Integrity Public Relations Inc., the signing of four new clients has spurred the 5-year-old company to abandon its consultant-based model and move into commercial office space with full-time staff early next year. The ad shop has been operating as a home-based business.
Integrity recently picked up work for Industry-based Regent USA, a flat-panel display maker; Pleasanton-based CPU Technology Inc., an electronic and chip device maker; and the Calabasas office of Alphameric PLC, a British software maker.
Integrity also added pro bono work for Make-A-Wish Foundation of Orange County and the Inland Empire.
“The addition of these clients has doubled the annual revenue of Integrity Public Relations,” said President Kenneth Hagihara.
