信息来源：http://www.businessweek.com/
Education
Academic Earth
academicearth.org
Richard Ludlow, 23
New York City
We first profiled Richard Ludlow last fall, when he was a finalist in our annual roundup of young entrepreneurs with big potential. At the time, Ludlow had turned down a job offer from McKinsey and deferred Harvard Business School in order to start angel investor-backed Academic Earth, a site with videos of university lectures and other educational content. Ludlow's mission hasn't changed: expand access to high quality education for free online and eventually make the for-profit operation sustainable through ad sales and affiliate marketing. The site, which is still pre-revenue, now features lectures from Berkeley, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale. Ludlow and his two full-time employees and handful of part-timers and contractors are working on tools that will allow users to post questions and answers, browse video transcripts, and search within the videos themselves for specific clips. The Yale grad says he deferred Harvard again and is in talks with more schools about including their videos on the site, which he says had more than 200,000 unique visitors in February.
Lumni
lumninet.com
Felipe Vergara, 40
Miami
After earning his MBA from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School in 1999, Felipe Vergara took the traditional path and joined consulting firm McKinsey in New York as an associate consultant, working on strategy projects in the U.S. and Paris. But before long the Colombia native wanted to do something more entrepreneurial. Struck by the number of bright kids in Colombia who couldn't afford to attend college, he decided to shift gears. In 2002 Vergara co-founded Lumni, a new investment system that uses private capital to fund higher education. Lumni creates funds by raising money from groups like the Inter-American Development Bank, foundations, universities, and wealthy donors to help students in Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and the U.S. pay for college. Lumni earns revenue from fees based on creating and managing those funds. After graduating, students pay a fixed percentage of their income (never more than 15%) back to the organization for a set period of time. To date, 75 students who received assistance from the program have graduated from college. This year Vergara, who was named as an Ashoka Global Fellow in 2006, expects Lumni's funds to reach $8 million, allowing it to finance 1,000 students.
Heatspring Learning Institute
heatspring.com
Brian Hayden, 30, and Duncan Miller, 29
Cambridge, Mass.
Concerned about global warming and U.S. dependence on foreign oil, Babson grads Brian Hayden and Duncan Miller founded the Heatspring Learning Institute in 2007 to train general contractors, engineers, architects, and other building professionals in the U.S. in how to design and install geothermal heating and cooling systems. The technology, which has existed for more than 50 years but is only now gaining popularity, works by pumping water through underground wells, where the stable temperature can heat buildings in cold weather and cool them in hot weather. Geothermal systems, which replace oil or gas furnaces in homes and commercial buildings, can cut energy bills by 30% to 70% and reduce carbon emissions from burning fuel, according to Hayden. So far, over 1,600 people have participated in the four-employee company's courses, which range from $300 online training to $1,500 three-day boot camps. The firm now offers training to building professionals in solar panel installation as well. Heatspring had sales of over $1 million in 2008, a figure Hayden expects to double this year.
Environmental
BigBelly Solar
bigbellysolar.com
Jim Poss, 36
Needham, Mass.
Jim Poss is cleaning up by cleaning up. His $4 million company's flagship product, a solar-powered trash compactor that holds around five times as much trash as a traditional trash can, is catching on with municipalities looking to slash budgets. (So far, Poss says he's sold over 2,000 of them in 30 states and 17 countries. The units, which are manufactured in New England, aren't cheap: They cost $3,100 to $3,900 a pop or lease for $70 to $90 a month, depending on purchase volume. But Poss says they typically pay for themselves within two to four years because fewer collections are needed, reducing money spent on man hours, fuel, and garbage trucks. Poss thinks the time is right to expand his 23-employee company, which has secured $5 million in angel investment since it launched in 2003: "Our product fits into the goals of the stimulus packageand it makes government smaller," he says.
Cyber-Rain
cyber-rain.com
Diana Schulz, CEO, 44, and Reza Pourzia, founder, 58
Westlake Village, Calif.
Frustrated from years spent driving through his California neighborhood watching lawn sprinklers automatically click on, even as it was raining outside, Reza Pourzia, an engineer by training, decided to do something about it. In 2005, he quit his consulting job at car ratings site Edmunds.com, and launched Cyber-Rain. The company's Cyber-Rain XCI System uses a wireless connection to check the weather on the Internet, and controls the sprinklers accordingly. It's a win-win: By preventing water waste, it also protects the environment by reducing runoff, saving consumers unnecessary water expenses. Although a unit costs $399, it should pay for itself in seven months as a result of water savings, says Diana Schulz, chief executive of the firm. The six-employee company sells primarily to landscape contractors, but is also selling directly to consumers through Amazon and other retailers. That's no drop in the bucket. Smart controllers could help save 24 billion gallons of water a year, says Schulz. The $4 million company just started selling its product last year, but in the past few months has helped save 9 million gallons of water in California alone.
Ice Stone
icestone.biz
Miranda Magagnini, 48, Peter Strugatz, 53
Brooklyn, N.Y.
After years of investing in companies with social missions such as Zipcar and Stonyfield Farms, Strugatz and Magagnini wanted to go into business for themselves. Strugatz had run his family sculpture reproduction company, and Magagnini had run her own marketing firm after getting an MBA at Harvard. The pair had met through Investors' Circle and Social Venture Network in 1995. In 2003, while scoping the Brooklyn Navy Yard for business opportunities, they noticed an eviction notice on the door of a glass recycling company that was $5 million in debt and was being auctioned off. Strugatz and Magagnini snapped it up with the goal of creating recycled residential and commercial surface materials by removing waste from the production stream, and doing so in an energy efficient and nonpolluting way. Ice Stone is realizing its goals. Its current line of counter tops, flooring, back splashes, and interior wall finishes are fashioned from recycled glass and concrete using technology developed by Tim McCarthy. Fifty percent of the company's energy comes from wind power, and it recycles 85% of the water used in production, saving nearly five million gallons annually. The company has 60 employees, 40% of whom are Tibetan refugees, and about $12 million in annual revenues. Last year, Magagnini says the company eliminated 4.5 million pounds of waste material that would have gone straight to landfill.
Restore Products
Restoreproducts.com
Laurie Brown, 55
Minneapolis, Minn.
For eight years until 1998, Brown, a former mental-health lobbyist, owned and operated Restore the Earth, an "environmentally aware" retailer in Minneapolis, selling water purifiers, organic cotton clothing, and non-toxic paints. She had hoped to franchise the business but when big corporations started selling similar green items, commoditizing them, she switched gears. Instead Brown recycled two of her in-store concepts. The first: a brand of natural Restore cleaning products. The second is the Restore Refilling station: a patented in-store kiosk that allows consumers to bring back empty product bottles and refill them. A machine reads a bar code, mixes the product, refills the bottle, and prints out a discount coupon. The kiosk system helps to reduce costs for manufacturers, retailers, and consumers while keeping plastic out of landfills and reducing water consumption. In 2002, Brown deployed kiosks in six stores. Today there are machines in 22 stores (including Whole Foods in eight states. Last year revenue was just under $1 million. Currently negotiating with several European grocers as well as a large American company for a possible licensing deal, Brown expects revenue to reach $5 million this year.
Sustainability
CleanFish
www.cleanfish.com
Tim O'Shea, 59, and Dale Sims, 61
San Francisco, Calif.
Cleanfish co-founder and CEO Tim O'Shea likens large-scale commercial fishing to "Hoovering up ecosystems." Formed in 2004, the company connects small-scale fish suppliers with distributors to get sustainable seafood to restaurant kitchens and supermarkets, in an effort build a market for sustainable aquaculture and wild fishing that doesn't damage the environment. To do that, O'Shea has four full-time "cleanfish evangelists" among his 30-strong staff, separate from his sales force, who work to educate chefs and consumers about how they source their fish. The company's suppliers—24 artisan fish producers they call the CleanFish Alliance—have already been able to expand because CleanFish increased the market for their seafood. The company's revenue has been doubling each year for three years, and CleanFish expects to top $20 million in 2009.
D.Light Design
dlightdesign.com
Sam Goldman, 29, and Ned Tozun, 29
San Francisco, New Delhi, and Shenzhen, China
Goldman and Tozun first met in 2005 while MBA students at Stanford University's Institute of Design, where they worked together on projects during a semester-long class called Designing for Extreme Affordability. Goldman had spent four years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Benin, where he experienced the problems of living without electricity and relying on dangerous kerosene lamps. As a result of that experience, the two decided to focus on an affordable, scalable light solution. They turned their class assignment into a solar-powered LED lamp prototype, and in 2006 decided to commercialize it, working around the clock to refine the lamp for rural households without access to electricity. By last October, the pair had raised nearly $6 million in venture funding. Today, D.Light's 50 employees manufacture and market to those living on $5 a day or less in Africa and Southwest Asia. Goldman says the lamps are making an impact in a test market in Orissa, India, where they are available via a payment plan. "Families making less than $12 a day crushing rocks were able to double their income, [Because they are now able to work on handicrafts] into the evening hours." Goldman adds that participants also saved money because they no longer needed to travel two days a month to buy kerosene. He says that so far all families have repaid their lamps that cost between $15 and $40 in full, and the company expects to earn at least $5 million in sales this year.
Stonyfield Farm
Stonyfield Farm
Gary Hirshberg, 54
Londonderry, N.H.
Call it the little yogurt company that could. Twenty six years ago, Hirshberg, then an environmental activist and aspiring entrepreneur, set out to demonstrate that business could be both profitable and sustainable. Last year, Stonyfield earned more than $300 million in sales and controlled about 7% of the total U.S. yogurt market. Now he plans to expand the business to be able to control 10%, and push the overall segment to 5% of all U.S. consumption in the future, up from 2.5% today. "My colleagues think I'm insane when I say this, but I couldn't be more excited about the new competition in organic foods and private labels," says founder Gary Hirshberg. "It means we've arrived." The company wants to go to the next level, says Hirshberg, creating sustainable packaging, such as edible cups, using 100% renewable energy in its facilities, and investing in a nutrition program that reduces cows' carbon footprint and makes more nutritious milk. Despite the economy, he hopes to increase revenues 15% this year. "I have spent the last two decades trying to prove that our business was commercially viable and competitive, and at the same time committed to the environment and sustainability," says Hirshberg. "Now, the most satisfying thing is the fact that I can reach people I never would have reached as a nonprofit incarnation."
Social
CraftNetwork
craftnetwork.com
Christopher Benz, 31
New York, N.Y. and Bali, Indonesia
Christopher Benz founded CraftNetwork in 2007 to connect artisan producers in the developing world with wholesale and retail customers in wealthy nations. By employing local artisans in marginalized communities under a unified brand, CraftNetwork helps them meet quality standards and respond to market demands, boosting their employment and sales. To date, the 26-employee company has exported goods from 1,355 artisans in 124 villages in three countries, and Benz hopes to continue to expand CraftNetwork's reach. The 26-employee firm brought in $419,000 in revenue in 2008, and Benz projects it will hit $672,000 this year.
Fair Trade Sports
fairtradesports.com
Scott James, 37
Bainbridge Island, Wash.
A Microsoft veteran, James calls his 10-person Fair Trade Sports "a blatant rip-off of Newman's Own," the successful food company that he modeled his company after, including its model to donate 100% of after-tax profits to charity. The $300,000 company started in the fall of 2006, as a maker of fair trade soccer balls for the North American market. The balls are made in Pakistan using the labor of several hundred people who are paid fair wages and belong to an adult union. The rubber used in the balls is sourced from manufacturers whose workers are also paid fair wages in India and Sri Lanka. James expects sales to hit at least $500,000 in 2009, and says so far his company has already helped hundreds of families earn a decent living. "If parents are paid a fair wage, they don't have to force their kids to go to work," he says. "Paying adults fair wages hits at the root of child poverty." Although fair trade sports is not yet profitable, to date the venture has donated $2,000 a year since its inception to two children's charities: the Boys & Girls Club of America and Room to Read, says James. He plans to donate all profits to those charities and other children's organizations.
Interrupcion Fair Trade
interrupcion.net
Rafael Goldberg, 28
Brooklyn, N.Y.
Goldberg was a college student at New York University in 2001 when he became involved in a social movement to encourage social responsibility in Argentina's private sector, following the collapse of the economy there. Today, Goldberg oversees the group's for-profit arm, called Social Enterprise, which helps growers collectives in Argentina by ensuring fair trade standards are upheld for the products they export to the U.S. and that sustainable methods are used in production. Interrupcion works with some 250 family-owned farms and 2,400 rural workers to make sure they are getting livable wages and access to health care and education. In order to do that, the company charges what it calls a "social premium" on every item it sells—products that include Patagonia cherries, organic olive oil, and wildflower honey. Interrupcion sells its products to supermarkets like the Food Emporium and Whole Foods among others. The three-employee company had about $2 million in revenues in 2008, and Goldberg says it raised $140,000 for health insurance, education, and other quality-of-life initiatives for farmers in its network. That money also went to support an emergency health fund. "This is a community where if one farmer gets sick, it can have catastrophic consequences," says Goldberg. "The whole family can go under." Goldberg says he expects the social premium he raises to double in 2009, and forecasts about $5 million in revenue in 2009
Social and Environmental
Green Coast Enterprises
greencoastenterprises.com
Will Bradshaw, 32, and Reuben Teague, 33
New Orleans, La.
Will Bradshaw had spent seven years working on a business plan for a company to build affordable, environmentally friendly housing when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in August 2005. The MIT grad student went to work on the recovery that fall, and began to form his business idea around making buildings in hot coastal regions more energy-efficient and durable in storms by using steel frames instead of wood. In 2007, he launched Green Coast Enterprises with Reuben Teague, a law clerk who had moved to New Orleans a week before the storm. The real estate development firm has two missions: to prove their concept by building storm-resistant buildings, and to develop practices that can be adapted to make more resilient structures in similar regions around the world. So far they have 24 units completed at a cost of $7 million in New Orleans. That includes four condo units they developed and sold or leased themselves, and 20 homes built for the nonprofit Project Home Again to house residents who lost their homes in the storm. Green Coast Enterprises had $180,000 in revenue in 2008, and sales contracts for $290,000 so far this year, with $550,000 in assets they hope to move into sales and leases in 2009.
Healthcare
Impact Makers
impactmakers.org
Michael Pirron, 38
Richmond, Va.
The health-care management and consulting company has an unusual business model, even for socially conscious enterprises, where double- and triple-bottom lines are the norm: 100% of its profits goes to the free clinic systems in Virginia. "We are a for-profit company with no ownership," says CEO Pirron, who adds: "We maximize profits for the community." To earn revenue, nine-employee Impact Makers works with medical management companies and health plans to construct disease management programs, as well as to perform IT work, systems consulting, and program audits. One of its big social goals is to provide free medication through its primary nonprofit partner RXpartnership.org, which donates insulin, asthma, and heart medication, among other things, to clinics that give health care to the uninsured. In 2008, Impact donated $9,000, based on about $300,000 in revenue. In 2009, it forecasts about double the revenue, from which it hopes to donate close to $40,000. Impact also donates pro bono consulting work to its partner, equivalent to 10% of its total annual hours.
PharmaJet
Pharmajet.com
Kathy Callender, 67
Golden, Colo.
After 12 years in business, PharmaJet may finally be able to sell its first product: a simple, needle-free injection device with a disposable syringe designed for use in third-world countries that can help prevent injury and the spread of disease. The company just received clearance from the Food & Drug Administration to use the tool for vaccines and injectable medicines. The 25-person company has not recorded any revenues to date, but plans to start selling its devices this year. So far, it has been developing the product with help from angel investors. "I want to make a difference in global world health," says Callender, a 35-year veteran of the health-care industry. "Before starting the firm, my husband and I would do medical mission work in the developing world, and it really just showed us how much need there is out there. I want to get needles out of the garbage and prevent injury to workers and patients."
Economical
Microfinance International Corp.
www.mfi-corp.com
Atsumasa Tochisako, 55
Washington, D.C.
Atsumasa Tochisako saw the poverty in Latin America firsthand when he was stationed there for the Bank of Tokyo from 1979 to 1989 in a variety of positions. So in 2003 he decided to attack poverty with the tools he knew well: banking. Tochisako started Microfinance International as a way to pull poor Latin American immigrants, who send some $300 billion back to their native homes annually, into the world's financial system. MFI markets its remittance services, check cashing, microloans, and other services to people in the U.S., helping them build financial knowledge and a credit history. Right now MFI operates 10 microfinance service centers in the mid-Atlantic region with plans to expand into California and Texas. And Tochsako, who was named an Ashoka Global Fellow in 2007, is also pushing to serve immigrants from many regions in the world, including Africa. So far the 80-employee operation has served about 70,000 immigrants living in the U.S. Last year, the firm generated $9.7 million in sales from a variety of revenue streams, including licensing and processing fees charged to institutions that use the company's remittance system.
Peacemaking (Social)
Peaceworks Holdings
peaceworks.com
Daniel Lubetzky, 40
New York, N.Y.
Can joint business ventures end violence and fundamentalism in the Middle East and other hot spots around the world? Stanford Law School grad Daniel Lubetzky is proving they can. He hit on the idea for his "not-only-for-profit" business model while on a fellowship in Israel in 1993. A year later, he launched a joint venture between Israelis and Palestinians, a line of all-natural tapenades and spreads under the labels Moshe & Ali's and Meditalia. which we first wrote about last year. More recently, PeaceWorks introduced Bali Spice, a line of Asian sauces manufactured by women's cooperatives made up of Muslims, Christians, and Buddhists in Indonesia and Sri Lanka. "I try to create business and social models that work intrinsically well together where the business itself advances a social cause and vice versa," says Lubetzky. Four years ago, he also introduced Kind Fruit & Nut Bars, a for-profit venture. From the beginning, Lubetzky has plowed 5% of his profits from his companies into the Peaceworks Foundation to empower moderate Israeli and Palestinian voices who want to work toward a two-state solution in the Middle East. In 2008, Peaceworks Holdings had about $15 million in revenue and became a Skoll Foundation grantee. Next year, Lubetzky expects to bring in between $25 million and $30 million.
Technological
PhilanTech
www.philantech.com
Dahna Goldstein, 35
Washington, D.C.
Though time may equal money, most nonprofit organizations are short on both. Dahna Goldstein hopes to help solve this problem. Her four-employee company, PhilanTech, developed and sells an online grants management tool to help both nonprofit organization and foundations manage the onerous administrative work associated with funding, which uses up roughly 13% of all grant money, according to the Center for Effective Philanthropy. Goldstein's technology helps recapture a chunk of that annual $4 billion not being spent on services and programs. Her own company is rapidly capturing its own customers. It rang up about $100,000 in sales last year, and expects to hit $400,000 in 2009. But with a background in education technology and venture philanthropy, Goldstein initially planned to structure PhilanTech as a nonprofit. "I realized, though, that in order for it to be successful, it had to be self-sustaining. I didn't want to rely on outside funding," she says. "And I do believe in the power of business to solve social problemsand the responsibility it has to do so."
Innova Materials
innovamaterials.com
Alex Mittal, 24
Philadelphia, Pa.
While volunteering in Honduras, laying pipes to bring running water to villages, Mittal, then earning two degrees at the University of Pennsylvania—one from the engineering school and one from the business school—hit on the idea of purifying water to kill pathogens as the water traveled to the villages. "One of the biggest problems in the developing world is not just access to water but water quality," he says. Back at Wharton, Mittal and a group of fellow engineering students devised their thesis project around developing a low-cost water pipe that kills water-borne bacteria using off-the-shelf equipment. Mittal founded Innova Materials in 2007 to commercialize their antimicrobial technology in collaboration with Engineers Without Borders. That same year, he spun out Ion Armour. The six-employee (three full-time) company makes antimicrobial products for luxury automakers, the U.S. government, and high-tech firms. Five percent of the revenue generated from Ion Armour (including a special edition yoga mat introduced last year) is used to continue development on water purification technology. This year, the company expects $250,000 in revenue.
Social Venture Technology Group
svtgroup.net
Brett Galimidi, 35, and Sara Olsen, 37
San Francisco, Calif.
The strategic consulting firm advises profits and nonprofits alike on ways to achieve their environmental and social goals. To do so, it relies in part on software it created internally that measure how effective organizations' projects are. The software includes such things as a "social return on investment calculator," which helps companies measure the actual impact of the projects they want to do. But SVT also provides consulting services. It recently helped Humanity United, a foundation started by Pamela Omidyar, wife of eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, figure out what the social and environmental impact of building an eco-lodge in Rwanda would be. "We researched analogous regions and projects to understand how this might affect a community, similar geography and political climate," says Galimidi, who holds a master's in environmental management from Yale, and worked in Internet marketing and environmental sustainability. Olsen, a former Mississippi River Delta public school teacher and social worker holds an MBA from Berkeley. SVT's client list includes heavy-hitter companies and foundations, including the Goldman Sachs Foundation, the San Francisco-based law firm Morrison & Foerster, the Rockefeller Foundation, and Goodwill Industries. All told, the five-person company, which had revenues of $500,000 in 2008, estimates its services and software impact some $2 billion slated for environmental and social causes.
Food and Beverages
Revolution Foods
revfoods.com
Kirsten Tobey, 31 and Kristin Richmond (not pictured), 33
Oakland, Calif.
Tobey and Richmond met at the Haas School of Business at UC-Berkeley and hatched the idea of creating a venture that combined their backgrounds in education with their shared love of food. (Tobey is a former educator in the U.S., Mexico, and Ecuador, and a public health activist; Richmond is a former investment banker who co-founded one of the first special education schools in Kenya.) When the pair talked to teachers and principals, parents, and students in public schools across the Bay Area, they were told that the biggest need was better quality meals, and that nobody was doing anything about it. So the pair devised a concept to deliver nutritious and healthy lunches. After raising $500,000 in seed money from venture capital firm DBL Investors and partnering with executive chef Amy Klein, a former director of operations for Teach for America, and Whole Foods, they launched a pilot program at one Oakland school in the spring of 2006. By year's end, they were serving 10 schools. "We realized there was a huge demand and we needed to scale and grow faster," says Tobey. Within two years, Revolution Food went from serving 500 lunches a day to 5,000 in 30 Bay Area Schools. They raised two additional rounds of funding totaling $10 million from Catamount Ventures and the Westly Group. Currently, with 120 employees and two commercial kitchens, Revolution delivers more than 20,000 lunches to more than 100 schools in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, with plans to expand across the country. Two years ago, the pair launched a separate business: Revolution Foods, an organic line of food products sold online and at Whole Foods. Last year, the company earned $4 million in revenue for their fiscal year that ended in June and Tobey says they are on track to make $10 million this year
Fashion
TOMS Shoes
www.tomsshoes.com
Blake Mycoskie, 32
Venice, Calif.
A serial entrepreneur who once launched a college laundry service and competed on the CBS television show The Amazing Race, Mycoskie traveled to Argentina in January 2006 to learn how to play polo, practice tango, and do some community service work. While there, he was struck by the country's health and poverty problems and discovered that numerous children did not have proper footwear. Soon after, he came up with the idea to create a shoe for the U.S. market based on the traditional Argentine alpargataa slip-on—in lightweight fabrics and vibrant colors and prints. Five months later he launched TOMS with $300,000 of his own money. Available at such retailers as Bloomingdale's and Nordstrom's, IT sold 10,000 pairs during its first year in business. For every pair of TOMS sold, the company donates a pair to a child in need. Since its launch, Mycoskie has donated over 115,000 shoes to children in need around the world through a series of "Shoe Drop" tours. The 45-employee company has earned an estimated $4.6 million since its launch.
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