starved entrepreneurs are responding to the credit crunch by posting their funding requirements to their own investment newswire, Growthwire at www.growthwire.com. The UK-domiciled global service has been two years in development and is now rolling out worldwide with capital-raising propositions posted from as far afield as Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Czech Republic, Estonia, Netherlands, Spain, Thailand, the UK and the US. Growthwire serves a high volume deal-flow investment stratum where deal values are small compared with mainstream capital markets but, for a growing company, can be make-or-break funding that now, thanks to the credit crunch, is proving increasingly difficult to source. The service is subscribed to by growth and alternative fund managers as well as individual investors who are overwhelmingly wealthy, successful entrepreneurs. Growthwire estimates that at any one time, worldwide, there are one million growth companies seeking funding and 10 million risk-keen entrepreneurs with capital available to invest. They will usually join the board in order to bring their experience - as well as capital - to bear. CEO David Rose said: “Growthwire has been developed for those people who risk their own capital and assets to build the private companies that deliver more than half of GDP and employment in all developed economies. When they have accrued wealth through building a successful business their instinct is to roll-over some of their capital gains into more wealth-creating opportunities. However, until now, they have never had a business and investment news service built around their own unique, wealth-creating culture in the same way that the mainstream capital markets have with Bloomberg, Reuters and others.” Growthwire has been developed in association with the Growth Markets Organization (GMO) based in Melbourne, Australia. GMO has been established to promote awareness of, IPO output from and liquidity for the worlds 100+ stock exchanges specializing in bringing growth companies to IPO status. Richard Symon, who resigned from his position as CEO of the National Stock Exchange of Australia (NSX) at the end of June to become full time chairman of GMO, said: “We knew from the outset that information drives liquidity and that there is a significant, well-defined community of entrepreneurial investors around the world that would be interested in IPO's coming from GMO member exchanges. It was a natural extension for us to open our newswire service, Growthwire, to facilitate private equity funding for early-stage, growth companies enabling more of them to become IPO-ready, at the same time offering GMO Member Exchanges as a natural exit route for investors.” Rose added: “There is no greater comfort for a bank than to know that an early-stage company is well capitalized and has experienced people around the boardroom table, even moreso in today's climate. Growthwire facilitates the introduction of this capital and experience to early-stage, growth companies.” Only professional capital raising advisors who have registered as Growthwire Authorized Advisors can post investment propositions to Growthwire on behalf of clients. This is to ensure quality control over investment documentation - in most instances a business plan or investment memorandum (as opposed to a prospectus) - and to provide a professional interface between investors and capital raisers. Entrepreneurs seeking funding for their enterprises can find a full list of advisors at www.growthwire.com. __
