There is a growing horde of start-ups emerging onto the wireless scene looking to make a play in the still-being-defined wireless Internet space.
Looking to take advantage of this raw creative material is a venture capitalist firm that has decided to focus its funding activities specifically on the wireless Internet space-iSherpa.net.
Specifically, iSherpa is targeting companies at their earliest stage looking for up to $2 million in financing. It’s a business incubator providing not only funding, but also office space, equipment and legal, technical and operational advice.
Gary Rohr, iSherpa co-founder and managing partner, called the firm a “full-service angel.”
“We roll up our sleeves with our clients and help them with such things as refining their sales and marketing strategy and acquiring customers and strategic partners,” he said.
With $10 million in equity financing, iSherpa already is assisting its first client, a wireless application service provider called Isovia, with $1.65 million in capital financing. ISherpa hopes to raise an additional $40 million in financing this year to help other wireless Internet start-ups.
If the Internet is the Wild West, then the wireless Internet is Dodge City. With all the chaos and uncertainty defining the space, one wonders why an incubator fund would focus specifically on it.
“That’s where we think the biggest opportunities are,” Rohr said.
ISherpa was founded by Rohr, Vipanj Patel, Navin Dimond and Ravi Kalakota. Rohr and Dimond are co-founders of a real estate firm in Denver, where iSherpa is located today. They were interested in starting a venture capitalist firm and hooked up with Kalakota and Patel, who were interested in wireless. Kalakota is an Internet veteran who first predicted the wireless Internet wave in a 1995 book. Patel is a securities lawyer. It was Kalakota that suggested the four converge and focus on the wireless space.
“We looked at the wireless space, determined where to play as an incubator and came up with several verticals,” Rohr said. “It all comes down to applications. What are we going to do? How is it going to enrich our lives?”
They are looking at such issues as security, telematics, location-based applications and portals. The managing partners have several wireless-related ideas, which the company uses as a screening process to determine which of the many companies approaching them receive financing. If they see a business plan that matches their ideas, the company will work to bring it to fruition.
“We want people to think about wireless,” Rohr said. “We’re willing to grab five individuals with an idea and help them make a prototype.”
At the pace of the Internet, these plans had better be forward-looking in nature.
“Any idea takes two years to get a product to market. Where’s the market going to be then?” he asked. “There is no such thing as a new economy, just the economy. Every company has to make money at the end of the day.”
