The Palm Beach Post - October 1, 2000
V.C. Money for NicheDirectories.com

NicheDirectories.com ****

For five years, two Boca Raton women have labored to build their Internet business. Now it's paying off: The company, NicheDirectories.com, has landed venture capital money.

NicheDirectories.com runs several summer camp-related Web sites, including its most popular site, kidscamps.com, a directory of children's camps. The company also has other sites, including campjobs.com and grownupcamps.com, a listingof recreational programs for adults.

Kim N. Bregman, a former IBM manager, and Nancy LaPook Diamond, a former producer and writer for MTV, are behind NicheDirectories.com. They were complaining about the lack of family-oriented Web sites when they came up with the ideaf for a listing of children's camps.

"We said, 'Aha! This is it!' " Diamond said. With a $20,000 investment, they started their business. Kidscamps.com alone now features more than 3,000 pages listing more than 12,000 camps, Diamond said.

The directory doesn't include ads and doesn't charge camps to be listed. But camps can pay to have their Web sites linked to Kidscamps.com. Nichedirectories.com also designs and maintains Web sites for camps.

All this work has been done by about nine people. But that's about to change because of an investment from Newtek Capital Inc.