@LARGE
Brother act

By Scott Kirsner, Globe Staff, 4/24/2000

Carl Nova, president and chief executive of ProRetail.com in Shelton, Conn., has an edge over your typical Internet entrepreneur. It's not that he has a bachelor's from MIT and an MBA from Rensselaer Polytechnic, or that he racked up a dozen years of business development experience at Dexter Corp. (the specialty materials manufacturer, not the shoe company).

The edge is a genetic one: Nova's younger brother is Dan Nova, a managing partner at Highland Capital Partners in Boston, and the venture capitalist who helped fund Lycos, eToys, MapQuest, Ask Jeeves, and Mercata. (He also put some money into New York Times Digital, the online arm of the company that owns The Boston Globe.)

ProRetail.com will connect retailers like Costco with private-label manufacturers, so that the retailers can get better deals on private-label products such as aluminum foil, shampoo, or diapers, for example. Carl Nova says it is a $100 billion industry, and that private-label products are among the highest-margin items a retailer sells. He left Dexter to start the company in January of this year.

Dan helped introduce Carl to a number of other venture capitalists. And when it came time for ProRetail.com to raise its first round this month, Dan made sure that Highland was the lead investor in a syndicate that included General Catalyst, Audax Group, Grove Street Advisors, and Interactive Capital Partners. The round, which ProRetail hasn't announced yet, was $3 million to $10 million, with Highland contributing slightly less than half.

How did the brothers, who grew up in East Cambridge, grapple with the nepotism issue? Dan Nova says that Highland wasn't involved in establishing a valuation for ProRetail.com (the other firms handled that), and that he won't serve on ProRetail's board. Instead, Highland partner Wyc Grousbeck will.

Carl says that, in some of their early discussions, he sought assurances from Dan that, sibling supportiveness aside, his idea was viable. "Dan assured me that this was an opportunity he would be extremely interested in, even if I wasn't involved," Carl says. ProRetail is gearing up for a July launch.

Extra incentive

How's this for an incentive to ship a product on time?

Assuming the engineering and quality assurance teams at Lexington's MarketSoft can get the company's new eOffers product out the door by April 30, they all get to go to Antigua with their spouses and kids.

MarketSoft specializes in - what else? - software that makes marketing more efficient. eOffers aims to help companies use the Net to target the right product offers and promotions to customers.

Antigua travel posters hang in the engineering area to provide extra motivation on those late nights as the deadline looms. And the quality assurance team, in testing the product, uses the e-mail address AntiguaBound@marketsoft.com.

MarketSoft chief executive Greg Erman cooked up the idea as an unorthodox way to get his employees focused on the release date. He expects to pay for about 68 employees, spouses, and children to fly to Antigua for five days in mid-May. He'll cover all expenses - including meals, drinks, and Jet-Ski rentals - and estimates the final tab will be about $100,000.

"Making work fun can be a recruiting advantage in times like these," Erman says via e-mail. "You cannot put a price on morale."

Nerd Bird added

Great news for frequent Valley visitors: American Airlines will add a third daily nonstop flight from Boston to San Jose starting Aug. 1. American's two current nonstop Nerd Birds leave in the morning; this one will leave at 6:45 p.m. and arrive at San Jose at 9:44 p.m.

Ready to launch

What's a "Liquid Launch Party"? David Sack, marketing director at the Cambridge Incubator, can't really explain it, except to declare that it most likely will not involve indoor Slip 'N Slide. Too bad.

The Incubator is throwing the invitation-only launch party this Thursday to inaugurate its new office space in Kendall Square. It's got a full floor of the high-rise, which includes two studios for visiting artists, a small auditorium, and a nap room next to the server room.

Sack wants to keep most of the details of the party secret, except to say that guests will be able to get a free massage, do some brainstorming, and see demos from four of the Incubators' "member companies" - BrandStamp, Etineraries, Veritas Medicine, and Alper Caglayan's intriguing-but-still-stealthy PeopleStreet.

Though judging took longer than expected, the Incubator will also announce the winner of its Get .ORGanized competition for nonprofit Net businesses at the party.

The three finalists are all wonderfully creative: Click-Up for Kids proposes rounding up online purchases to the nearest dollar, and donating the difference between that and the actual price to charity; Mathtastic uses sports statistics to teach math; and Secure Sponsorship helps people use their databases of contacts to get pledges (via credit card) for charitable events like walkathons. The winner gets $250,000 of Incubator financing and services.

Also awaiting takeoff

Over at I-Group Hotbank NE, another incubator in town, the launch party won't take place until June, when an extensive renovation of the Oliver Ames Mansion - the incubator's headquarters - is complete.

Stephen Roy, one of I-Group Hotbank's managing directors, bought the building, on the corner of Commonwealth Avenue and Massachusetts Avenue, in 1997 for $2.7 million. He estimates that by the time they're done spiffing it up, they'll have spent another $7 million. Roy plans to use the top two floors, which include an atrium with a retractable roof, as his private residence.

"If you can get an older building with character, we think that helps with creativity," says Roy. There are six companies already in development at I-Group Hotbank, with another three in the process of signing on. The incubator is a joint partnership between the Roy family's Intercontinental Group and Seed Capital Partners, an arm of Japan's Softbank Corp.

Plans to have Softbank chief executive Masayoshi Son, Japan's version of Bill Gates, attend the launch party don't seem to be panning out. But I-Group Hotbank says Governor Paul Cellucci may help with the ribbon-cutting. That'd be fitting, since Oliver Ames once occupied Cellucci's office.

Prom night for dot.com

Who are you bringing to the prom? That's the question this week at Waltham's Send.com.

The gift site didn't have the chance to throw a big party because of the intensity of this past holiday season. So this Saturday, they've booked a hotel ballroom, hired a band, and dusted off their tackiest gowns and frilliest tuxedo shirts.

Yes, it's a prom, complete with the crowning of a king and queen. Employees even pay for tickets, but the proceeds will go to Reading is Fundamental.

As Mom said to me on prom night: Be safe, kids.

Scott Kirsner is a Boston writer and a contributing editor at Wired, Fast Company, and Boston Magazine.