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Beltway Biz

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Womenpower: Two content sites that could have been archrivals on the World Wide Web have, interestingly, chosen to band together.

Women's Connection Online, (www.womenconnect.com) which has been around since 1994, and Electra, America Online's brand new site for women (www.electra.com), are new best friends.

Both sites offer news, business advice and e-commerce options geared toward women. The alliance will revolve around a mentorship program in which younger women partner with older women to enhance their career prospects.

Susan DeFife, CEO of Women's Connection Online, which is now looking for a new round of financing, said women helping other women is the whole idea behind the Electra partnership.

MindShare Graduates Its First Class: Thirty high-tech, high-energy entrepreneurs in the Washington region gathered recently to pat each other on the back for a year well-done.

The technology CEOs in the MindShare program, co-sponsored by the Northern Virginia Technology Council and the Potomac KnowledgeWay Project, met regularly over the past year at Clyde's Restaurant in Tysons Corner, sharing stories and listening to guest speakers. The group's cards-on-the-table slogan is "Turning Mavericks into Millionaires."

The CEOs "graduated" Dec. 3 at Nasdaq headquarters downtown. A majority of the group then retreated to nearby seafood restaurant McCormick & Schmick's, where they consumed fried calamari and much red wine. Raul Fernandez, CEO of Proxicom and one of the most financially successful graduates of the group, picked up the tab for all. Late-nighters included Potomac KnowledgeWay Executive Director April Young and other graduates such as CEO Lev Volftsun of LightSpeed International in Sterling, Va., and the ubiquitous CEO of Reston, Va.-based CrossMedia, Bob Nelson.

Harry Glazer, a partner with the law firm Ginsburg, Feldman and Bress, and Anne Crossman, CEO of Completed Systems Inc., who run the program, said they are in the process of picking next year's class. It will be hard to keep the alumni away....

Net Impact Gets FBR Money: FBR Technology Partners, the venture capital fund run by Gene Riechers at Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co., Arlington, Va., has made a $4 million investment in Net Impact Systems Inc., Falls Church, Va.

Net Impact, founded in 1996 by CEO Bob Schmonsees, develops intranet/extranet transfer software products geared toward improving a company's sales productivity.

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