Today is a special day not only for the State of the Union Address. It also marks the 10th Anniversary of Springboard Enterprises, the venture catalyst organization that selects, trains and presents women entrepreneurs in high growth companies to raise venture capital. And tonight, a Springboard presenter, Ping Fu CEO of GeoMagic will be cited in the President's address. What a fitting reward for all the hard work.
When Amy Millman, President of Springboard, and I presented our first class of 26 entrepreneurs at the Oracle Conference Center in Redwood City California, on January 27, 2000, I stood on stage to open the event and looked out over the sea of investors. I thought to myself, "Okay, it's showtime." We had no idea what would happen.
Wow! We knocked the socks off them! We had pierced the veil of the venture capital community for these entrepreneurs, and we were off to the races. Ever since then, we have presented 407 companies that have raised over $5B in capital and provided attractive returns to their investors. Importantly, these companies today have over $4B in revenue and have created over 10,000 jobs, and we are just getting started.
Our President's agenda is now jobs, jobs, jobs. Well, for our 20th anniversary, I predict our companies will have raised $20B in capital, have $20B in revenue and created 100,000 jobs.
Investing in these innovative companies is the future of our county. As for me, I feel that playing my role in the evolving story is just the best thing I have ever done.