The 32^nd annual MGCS is the “Midwest’s leading event for attracting the best investors from across the U.S. and showcasing high-quality investable companies”.  The MGCS is presented by the University of Michigan Zell Lurie Institute at the Ross School of Business in partnership with the Michigan Venture Capital Association.  In the past decade, over 300 companies have presented.  Roughly 70% of these have raised capital totaling $1.7 billion in investments and nearly 20% have realized successful exits.

The 2013 event expects over 400 attendees, including angel, seed, and growth stage investors from across the U.S., executives of early stage and emerging growth companies, and related stakeholders.  This years’ event will feature keynote presentations, 32 pre-qualified Midwest companies seeking up to $20 million, five panels of experts from the U.S. Venture and Entrepreneurial Communities, and two days of high-level networking.

Supported Intelligence is scheduled to present Wednesday, May 22 from 10:15AM to 10:30AM at the Marriott Resort in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

For more information on the MGCS visit: www.michigangcs.com.

“Entrepreneurs maximize value, not profits”

EAST LANSING, Mich. – Cutting-edge valuation techniques are described in a new book by Patrick L. Anderson, founder and Executive Chairperson of Supported Intelligence, LLC, that has just been released by Stanford University Press.

The book, Economics of Business Valuation, brings to light an expanded valuation toolkit, consisting of well-defined valuation principles hailing from the fields of economics, finance, accounting, taxation, and management. While the other methods, including the common “discounted cash flow” method, are well known, the new “value functional” or “recursive” method is a genuine breakthrough. Among its other advantages, it natively grasps the actual motivations of business managers and investors, including the motivation to build a business over time even if it involves losing money for some time period, and natively handles the “real options” that are common in actual investment situations.

“The concept of businesses as mindlessly ‘maximizing profits’ is wrong,” said Patrick L. Anderson, the author of the new book, “real entrepreneurs maximize value, not profits.” Anderson’s approach to the fundamental motivation of entrepreneurs grows out of his actual experience starting two businesses, as well as his extensive investment experience. The valuation method described in this book recognizes that investors, managers, and entrepreneurs look at opportunities, management, and market conditions as more important than profits in any one time period, contrary to the common impression given by both introductory economics textbooks and the popular press.

Other experts that have seen the manuscript are praising the book. “This book clearly reviews the existing literature and shows the shortcomings of conceptual and practical methods that are used throughout the business and consulting world.” said Fernando Torres, Chief Economist of IPmetrics, LLC. “It introduces fundamental changes that build up to an improved methodological approach and that significantly advance the ‘science of valuation.’”

Economic of Business Valuation is published by Stanford University Press and is available for purchase at http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?id=11400.

The Rapid Recursive ® Toolbox , introduced in December 2012 by Supported Intelligence LLC, allows end users to apply the “recursive method” that is described in Economics of Business Valuation. For example, the company recently released technical paper demonstrating how traditional techniques undervalue or overvalue an actual oil & gas company by billions of dollars, while the recursive method allows for an accurate assessment. Use of the recursive method—described in the new book—can dramatically improve the investment decisions involving start-up and technological firms, oil & gas companies, natural resource firms, intellectual property, as well as improve medical decisions, agricultural management decisions, and major life decisions such as purchasing or postponing purchasing a house.

About the Author

Patrick L. Anderson is the founder and Executive Chairperson of Supported Intelligence, LLC.  Supported Intelligence provides advanced analytics for investment modeling, valuation, financial modeling, risk assessment, and decision optimization. Their primary product, the Rapid Recursive® Toolbox (patent-pending), allows end users to apply advanced techniques from economics and dynamic programming to analyze critical decisions. Whether applied in investment analysis, new product development, risk management, or academic research, the Rapid Recursive® Toolbox puts knowledge to work in ways traditional decision models cannot.

Mr. Anderson is also the founder and CEO of Anderson Economic Group (AEG), an East Lansing-based consultancy formed in 1996.  Mr. Anderson is a recognized authority on business valuation and commercial damages, and has written over 100 published works. Mr. Anderson is a graduate of the University of Michigan, where he earned a Master of Public Policy degree and a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science.

The competition attracts entrepreneurs from all over Michigan to pitch their ideas. The competition has $50,000 worth of prizes including $25,000 for first prize.

Matthew Irey, President and COO of Supported Intelligence, will give a presentation about the Rapid Recursive® Toolbox and Supported Intelligence’s business model.

“This is an exciting opportunity to showcase our business.” said Matthew Irey. “It will also be interesting to hear the latest ideas coming out of Michigan.”

Angel and venture capital investors will be among the attendees at the event held on March 13, 2013 at the Henry Center at Michigan State University.

Supported Intelligence is one of 25 finalists of the competition.

Further information about the Greenlight Michigan Business Model Competition is available at: http://www.greenlightmichigan.com.

At the conference, Anderson will provide an overview of Supported Intelligence and highlight how their main product, the Rapid Recursive® Toolbox, uses advanced analytics to solve a wide arrange of sequential decision problems.

Anderson is also the CEO of Anderson Economic Group and will discuss that organization as well.

Representatives of Supported Intelligence, including MSU affiliated employees, will be available at a booth at the careers fair.

The Business Analytics Careers Fair will be held on Friday March 15 between 1-4pm at the Henry Center.

You can registration for the Business Analytics Careers Fair at the following website: http://analytics2013.eventbrite.com

Phone: 517-333-7024

New Software applies Nobel Prize-winning theories for making risky decisions

EAST LANSING, Mich. – Revolutionary new risk assessment and decision-making software that will benefit academic researchers and decision-makers in multiple businesses and industries has been launched by East Lansing-based Supported Intelligence, LLC.

Supported Intelligence, LLC was founded by Patrick L. Anderson and the Anderson Economic Group (AEG), Michigan’s leading economic, financial and public policy research firm.  The team spent the better part of 6 years developing the Rapid Recursive Toolbox and has filed a patent application to protect the rights to the invention.

The Rapid Recursive® Toolbox uses advanced mathematical concepts to provide a substantially more powerful analysis and decision-making process in financial, investment, academic and other risk-assessment environments.

“Rapid Recursive is superior to other risk-assessment tools because of its enhanced ability to model the uncertainty and choices that come with decision-making,” said Matthew Irey, President and Chief Operating Officer of Supported Intelligence.

Rapid Recursive is based on ground-breaking mathematical theories that were developed over the last 50 years, and were thought to be too difficult to put into practice. However, tremendous progress on the computation and theoretical fronts has allowed Supported Intelligence to deliver the first ever recursive-based analytical tool to the market.  The Rapid Recursive Toolbox handles the difficult tasks of formulating the necessary mathematical structures, error-checking them, solving the underlying mathematical equations and reporting the data in an actionable manner.

“Rapid Recursive offers the ability to analyze thousands of different scenarios,” Irey said. “When you have to make several decisions over a period of time, you want to know the costs and benefits involved with each. The traditional risk assessment models don’t accurately take these strategic issues into account – Rapid Recursive allows users to evaluate sequential decision problems in a flexible, groundbreaking way.”

“Rapid Recursive can serve as a launching point for truly groundbreaking research,” said Irey. “We’re very excited to see how some of the country’s leading minds put this product to work furthering their fields.”

The MATLAB based toolbox is the first stage of the Rapid Recursive rollout — Supported Intelligence programmers are moving forward on applications for diverse industry and investment scenarios, including oil and gas, mining, finance, investments, and pharmaceuticals. Work is also underway to offer Rapid Recursive on additional platforms, including a cloud based SaaS edition. These versions will be introduced to the market over the next year.

For pricing information and an explanatory video, please visit supportedintelligence.com or follow us at twitter.com/supintel and facebook.com/SupportedIntelligence.

Supported Intelligence received BizSpark membership with sponsorship from the Lansing Area Economic Partnership (LEAP).