Venture capital expert says Baton Rouge should promote assets, celebrate successes

Sometimes people in Baton Rouge take the region’s selling points for granted, says Ross Barrett, managing general partner of Bossier City-based BVM Capital. But he says assets such as the Baton Rouge Area Chamber, the new Regional Innovation Organization, Baton Rouge Area Foundation, the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, LSU and the LSU AgCenter all contribute to the business ecosystem and should be promoted as such. Barrett spoke to the Rotary Club of Baton Rouge today. He says the state’s business and political climate have improved dramatically under Governors Foster, Blanco and Jindal. “Everybody knows that you’re going to get a straight deal when you come to the state of Louisiana,” he says. “That’s critically important, and that’s different from what it was a generation ago.” BVM Capital is the management company for the Louisiana Ventures and Themelios Ventures funds. Local holdings include Esperance Pharmaceuticals, which is developing anti-cancer drugs, NuPotential, which works in stem cell therapy, and Chow Town, which is developing a children’s TV show. Barrett says his firm is focused on life science companies and commercializing university research and development in the underserved southeastern part of the country. If one or several of their companies hit it big, that could help draw more investment to the area and encourage more commercialization of local research, he says. —David Jacobs