Yuba City’s only contestant in Venture Island Chico is hoping Sutter County inhabitants will attend the next event and vote her company into the next round.
Venture Island is a venture capital competition designed to bring entrepreneurs together with investors. The grand prize will be a cash award of up to $50,000, the final amount dependent on community contributions and sponsorships to help their project forward.
Yuba City entrepreneur, Crystal Martin, and her California Academy of Nursing made the first cut—from 16 to eight contestants—back in February. The June 5 event will narrow the contestants down to three. Each round is decided 50 percent by judges and 50 percent by audience vote.
Martin’s dream of establishing Sutter County’s first nursing program has proven its worth, consistently scoring first or second with the judges, but she needs more audience members in her corner. She is encouraging Sutter County residents to attend, vote, and push her into the winner’s circle at the June 5 event at Enloe Medical Center.
She hopes the community will continue support with their attendance at the final contest, “Climbing Mount Kahuna,” on June 26 at the annual dinner for Chico Economic Planning Corporation.
Martin’s California Nursing Academy addresses the nursing shortage in California that’s currently at 17,000 nurses and projected to grow to 85,000 in the next 20 years, without adequate training programs. CSU, Chico and Butte Community College offer nursing programs, but for 300 applicants only 40 spaces are available.
Her nursing academy is in the final stages of accreditation and the next step is financing, which is why she is participating in Venture Island.
Co-sponsored by Golden Capital Network, a company that seeks to bring funding to entrepreneurs, Venture Island Chico is a ‘Survivor’-style program for entrepreneurs to tout their ideas to investors. Contestants go through a series of themed presentations where they are judged by a panel of business pioneers, the likes of Ken Grossman of Sierra Nevada Brewing Company and Dan Lankford of Wavepoint Technologies.
The June 5 event takes place 4:00-7:30 p.m. at the Enloe Conference Center in Chico. You can preregister for $20 at chico.venturecommunities.com (cost at the door is higher). | 
