Growthink in the News

August, 2008 - Inc. Magazine's annual Inc. 5000 survey of America's most entrepreneurial companies, has ranked Growthink as one of the country's Top 100 Business Services Companies, with a comprehensive survey ranking of 898 out of the 5000 companies listed and one of America's fastest growing private companies.

"Growthink's standing -- we're ranked in the top twenty-percent of the Inc. 5000 survey -- is a tremendous validation of our mission to be the premier capital and advisory partner to early stage and middle market enterprises," said Jay Turo, Growthink's Founding CEO and Managing Partner. "Our distinction as one of the country's top 100 business services firms and among the top 50 businesses in Los Angeles, highlights our commitment to drive business creation, growth and economic opportunity in this great city, our region and throughout our nation."

More information on the Inc 5000 list is available here:
http://www.inc.com/inc5000/

August, 2008 - Growthink has received numerous press mentions for the firm's recent work with Safari Air, the nation’s first carbon neutral luxury private airline. Growthink is advising Safari Air on the company’s business development, growth strategy and marketing initiatives.

News of Growthink's work with Sarari Air was picked up by the following major business news publications:

AOL Money News

Forbes

Houston Chronicle

Smart Money

June, 2008 - Growthink has received wide coverage for its recent work with Pop! Technology, a creator of 'active' barcode information systems used by the Food, Beverage, Pharmaceutical and Health Services sectors.

Pop! Technology’s 'smart' barcodes provide users with real time information about the status and condition of their products at all points of the supply and distribution chain, from manufacture to end-user. The Company’s barcodes, which are compatible with current scanning devices, can provide users with a range of critical information, including product temperature, retail placement, fraud detection and shoppers’ buying patterns.

Austin, Texas-based Pop! Technology recently retained Growthink to raise $2 million in Series A growth capital.

News of Growthink's work with Pop! Technology was picked up by the following major business news services:

CNBC

Forbes

Yahoo! Finance

June, 2008 - Growthink has received numerous press mentions for its recent work with iControl Systems, Inc., the leading provider of data and billing consolidation software to print media retailers and publishers.

iControl's software enables print media retailers and publishers to share and analyze data regarding the distribution, cost, sales and revenues generated from their newspaper and print media publications.

iControl recently retained Growthink to raise a $15 million round of financing.

News of Growthink's work with iControl was picked up by the following major news services and websites:

Forbes

Fox Business News

New York Times Dealbook

Venture Beat

Yahoo! Finance

May, 2008 -

Growthink was recently featured in the Dow Jones "Clean Technology Investor" newsletter. The full article, in full, appears below.

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Growthink, International Wood Seek Amazon Credits By Sari Krieger

5/20/2008 – Investment bank and consulting firm Growthink signed a deal with International Wood Co., a global forestry investment firm, that aims to capitalize on carbon credits from two million acres of rainforest located in the Amazon region.

Los Angeles-based Growthink will develop an analytical model for International Wood that assesses the current market value of the credits locked up in its Amazon land, with the credits then traded via the Chicago Climate Exchange. The companies estimate that the project could generate as much as $300 million in credits.

Jay Turo, chief executive officer and managing partner of Growthink, said in an interview with Clean Technology Investor that his participation in the environmental and clean technology sector was very minor prior to early 2007, but it has since become a quarter of his business.

Growthink is currently working with 12 clean technology companies.
Those include Helix Wind - part of New Earth LLC - which makes small wind turbines for home use; True Energy Inc., a company that captures waste energy from smokestacks; and a company that sells green technologies for the home, Turo said.

"A lot of our business is driven by the venture capital appetite and right now the venture capital appetite is enormous for these types of companies," Turo said. "There is enormous economic incentive around getting non-carbon-based energy solutions. Think about the dollars that would flow and do flow as these companies emerge. It's going to be transformative. And I am completely confident that these technologies will emerge. People are going to make a lot of money out of it too."

March, 2008 -

Growthink was featured in the March 31st, 2008 edition of the Los Angeles Business Journal. The article, in full, appears below.

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Los Angeles business advisory firm Growthink this month announced new relationships with five emerging companies.

Growthink specializes in providing capital and advisory services to startups and middle market enterprises.

Highlighting the list of new clients is Brand Velocity, a technology consulting firm that works closely with enterprise software giant SAP AG. Growthink will work with the company to develop a business plan.

"The relationships with many of our clients initially focus on strategic planning to craft their business models and determine the use of proceeds when they go out and get capital," said Jay Turo, chief executive of Growthink.

Another new client, Rogue Entertainment, is seeking to raise capital to expand its operations. The company owns hotels in Lake Tahoe and Big Bear that cater to snowboarders, and it also produces a reality show that tracks life among the staff. New hotels are on the drawing board.

"Many of our clients have an ambition to grow toward a strategic or financial sale of the business, and we want to turbo-charge that growth," Turo said. "If the clients have businesses that are within the appetite of our investment network, we can act for them in an investment capacity as a broker dealer."

Growthink has growth plans of its own. The company has added 10 employees this year, boosting its staff to 50 team members, and plans to continue its hiring program. The company in January relocated from Venice to a larger 8,000 square-foot office in Los Angeles.

In September, Growthink teamed up with DCIP, a developer of theater-scale digital cinema technology, to provide investment advice for growth capital and to assist the company with market research.

Growthink was also recently named adviser of record for Jiangxi Copper Co., an emerging Chinese firm located in Yingtan City. Growthink will develop and launch Jiangxi's strategic planning, resource management and capital acquisition initiatives.

March, 2008 -

Growthink and Lee Muhl are featured in the March 3rd "Movers and Shakers" section of The Deal (http://www.thedeal.com), the premiere publication covering trends in mergers and acquisitions, private equity, and venture capital.

Here is the text from the piece:

Hooray for Hollywood

Lee Muhl, the son of Universal Studios Inc. production chief Eddie Muhl, grew up on movie studio lots, where he walked around sets, ate at the commissary, and procured autographs from actors Cary Grant, Tony Curtis, Rock Hudson and family friend Sidney Poitier. Though he was in love with movies, watching them at screenings or at home, Muhl decided to go to UCLA School of Law to become a litigator.

"I went to law school because I disliked injustice and wanted to be in public-interest litigation," says Muhl, 51. But upon arriving at Pacht, Ross, Warner, Bernhard and Sears, Muhl quickly abandoned that path to join the firm's entertainment department on the advice of a colleague who told him "instead of saving the world, you should entertain the world."

Muhl may not be entertaining the world these days, but he is helping to advise those who do. Muhl has just been named a managing partner and head of the entertainment and new-media practice at Growthink Inc., a Los Angeles-based firm that provides advisory services to small and medium-sized companies. Muhl has spent the past two years as an adviser to Growthink's media and entertainment clients, helping them with business strategy, financial modeling, project valuation and distribution concepts.

He knows these areas well. After Pacht Ross, Muhl went on to advise Hollywood luminaries such as Oliver Stone, Ridley Scott, Rob Cohen and others, assisting on structuring deals for films like "Blade Runner," "48 Hrs." and "Midnight Express" while at law firm Pollock, Bloom and Dekom. In Hollywood, Muhl also worked at International Creative Management as a motion picture agent.

Muhl starting working with Growthink after a foray into Internet content delivery as the CEO of a now-defunct dot-com that combined entertainment and education for teenagers. So far, he says the interest entertainment companies have shown in Growthink's services have pleased him.

"I think they think we are kind of cool," Muhl says.

 

February, 2008 - Los Angeles, California—Growthink today unveiled a new corporate website and announced the relocation of the Firm’s global headquarters, effective January 4, 2008, from Venice, CA to the City National Bank Building, located at 6033 West Century Boulevard, in Los Angeles.

Growthink has organized its offices using an 8,537 square foot open concept plan on the first floor of the building, which is located adjacent to the entrance to Los Angeles International Airport.

“Our new website and new headquarters—located near LAX, the gateway to Asia—reflects the global impact of our Investment Banking and Business Development services, which are building successful companies from Santa Monica to Shanghai,” said Jay Turo, CEO and Managing Partner of Growthink. “The Company’s revenues have increased nine-fold in four years and that success is apparent in Growthink’s website, which showcases the full range and capacity of our advisory services, and in our expansive office space, which allows us to grow bigger, bolder and better able to service a worldwide client portfolio.”

January, 2008 -

Growthink co-founder David Lavinsky discusses his insights on strategic business plan development, gleaned from nine years at Growthink, working with hundreds of entrepreneurs.

Read the full interview

January, 2008 -

Growthink's strategic advisory and financial advisor work for Jiangxi Copper Company, a copper resource company located in Yingtan City, China.

Read the full story