By DON DODSON
©2003 The News-Gazette
CHAMPAIGN – John Banta and Rob Schultz worked together long before they became chief executive officer and senior director, respectively, of IllinoisVentures.
Before joining IllinoisVentures in January, Schultz was chief executive officer of DigitalWork, a Chicago-based online provider of small business applications.
Banta, who had gone to business school with Schultz, also worked at DigitalWork, handling strategic alliances and eventually becoming president and chief operating officer.
Banta left to join IllinoisVentures in October 2002, and Schultz joined him three months later.
Today, Banta is based largely in Chicago, where he works with Kathryn Burrer Hyer, who focuses on life sciences.
Schultz is based in Champaign. His office is in Room 226 of the EnterpriseWorks building in the UI's South Research Park. Joining his staff last week was John Regan, formerly of Keystone Ventures.
Schultz, 36, of Champaign, is originally from Barrington. He received a bachelor's degree in economics from Northwestern University in 1989 and a master's degree in business administration from the University of Chicago in 1995.
He worked as a consultant for several years, first for McKinsey and Co. in Zurich, Switzerland, and then for Deloitte & Touche.
In 1995, he started and ran Nequity, a subsidiary of Signet Bank in Richmond, Va., that delivered small business applications via the Internet.
Three years later, he started DigitalWork, which had a similar mission.
"We launched and built a number of applications (for) building a Web site, marketing, sending out press releases, recruiting new employees," Schultz said.
The business grew to 140 employees in two years. Schultz said he raised $70 million over the course of five years, receiving capital from San Francisco and Philadelphia sources.
Just as Schultz was about to take the company public in the spring of 2000, the Nasdaq market crashed.
"We did not go public, but readjusted the business to the down economy," he said.
Schultz said he has a passion for early-stage companies and for turning good ideas into going concerns. He said he was drawn to the UI by the rate at which new technologies were being developed there.
He said he thinks it's a good thing that he experienced the downs, as well as the ups, of building a young company.
"To coach companies, you have to have been there and left some paint on the guardrail," he said.
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