FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(Portland, Maine) The Maine Center for Entrepreneurial Development (MCED) is pleased to announce that its newest Top Gun Sponsor is the Small Enterprise Growth Fund (SEGF).

SEGF is a professionally managed venture capital fund that invests exclusively in high growth Maine companies that demonstrate a potential for public benefit. The Fund has been actively investing in Maine companies since 1997, after its creation by an act of the Maine Legislature in 1995 to provide Maine companies and entrepreneurs access to patient sources of venture capital.

“A primary driver in a company’s success is the experience, knowledge, know-how, passion and drive of the management team. The Small Enterprise Growth Fund, Maine’s venture capital fund, focuses on investing in companies with top-notch people. Top Gun’s strategy of matching high potential entrepreneurs with successful mentors facilitates the knowledge transfer necessary, and further develops those entrepreneurs, to build Maine¹s next generation of innovative businesses,” says Jayme Okma Lee of the Small Enterprise Growth Fund.

Top Gun teaches emerging entrepreneurs what they really need to know to manage and grow a successful growth-oriented business. The formal program runs for four months but we expect that the mentoring relationships will extend well beyond the confines of the program. For additional information about MCED, please visit http://www.mcedtopgun.biz

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ABOUT MCED

MCED is a private, not-for-profit 501-c-3 organization created to establish an environment where small companies, start-ups and first-time entrepreneurs can grow, prosper and successfully commercialize their technology in southern Maine. As Maine’s first business incubator, MCED was created out of the Portland Regional Chamber in 1997 to be a model of excellence for nurturing entrepreneurs, launching successful start-up companies and implementing innovation as an economic development tool for Maine.