Business briefs

Advertiser Staff

Venture group enters Hawai'i

Venture Law Group, a Silicon Valley investing firm that helped start Yahoo!, Hotmail and WebTV, is joining Hawai'i business mentoring group HiBeam to offer its clients advice.

HiBeam was founded two years ago to stimulate the Hawai'i high-tech industry.

Venture Law Group already has three Hawai'i cli-ents who are HiBeam clients: Hoana Technologies, Hawaii Biotech Inc. and AssistGuide.

During the late 1990s Internet boom, Venture Law Group offered advice and invested in start-ups that eventually raised billions of dollars in initial public offerings.

Head of startup firm HotU quits

Laurie Foster has resigned as president of Honolulu startup company HotU after 18 months.

She will be replaced by Cathy Owen, vice president of development and product management. Owen, a two-year HotU veteran, has 21 years' experience at IBM.

HotU is developing software and management systems for online recruitment of college students. The company, founded in 2000 by Punahou alumnus Walter Roth, has several dozen employees in Honolulu and California and is underwritten by Digital Island founder Ron Higgins.

The company secured $4 million in venture capital last year.

Foster said she plans to work with two new entrepreneurial ventures.