Barbara Rose

Online home-improvement retailer OurHouse Inc. is adding a gourmet cooking wing. The Evanston-based Internet firm, which is 20 percent owned by Ace Hardware, is buying California's Tavolo Inc., an online...

One of Chicago's better-known start-ups, CapacityWeb, is out of cash and scrambling for money 18 months after its promising start with endorsements from one of the country's most prominent e-commerce...

Taking venture capital is like gulping steroids. Businesses get more aggressive and grow much faster. But if their money runs out too soon, they fold or shrink just as quickly...

`Quick turnaround" has a literal meaning at SalonSavvy.com. Need a decision fast? The firm's three employees swivel their chairs for an instant summit in their single-room office above Maggiano's restaurant...

A sale or a shutdown is likely at one of the area's best-known tech ventures, Open Port Technology, where a financial storm is threatening to capsize the ship. On board...

There's a new mantra at the area's biggest Internet start-up, Divine Interventures, and it rings with more pain than promise. The latest theme? "Roll 'em up. Lay 'em off. Roll...

Money talks, or so the old saw goes. And money is speaking up at local high-tech firms as diverse as BlueMeteor, Commerx and I-Works. Money partners are signaling--in some cases...

Jack Sandner's shiny metallic cell phone buzzes like some agitated beetle on the polished surface of his conference table. His hand darts out to shut it off, but he doesn't...

Ken Creasman has set up camp in a corner on the 44th floor of the Sears Tower. He has a desk, a phone and business cards that say he's an...

Chicago's FreeDrive Inc., an Internet company led by former Chicago Mercantile Exchange Chairman John Sandner, is expected to announce Thursday strategic investments by three major corporations: Motorola Inc., Electronic Data...