Crime against businesses is rising in Richmond.

“In the past six months, we’ve noticed about a 25 percent increase in the number of burglary calls from businesses,” says one employee of a local security company who asked that his name not be used because his company does not allow employees to talk to the press. Cash-strapped thieves take whatever goods they can in order to pawn them elsewhere for money, he said. “It boggles my mind the kind of things people will steal.”

Local startup Boxwood Partners is about to acquire an internet wholesaler/distributor. In order to turn a profit, Boxwood will have to improve businesses after acquiring them. That means there’s opportunity for local businesses to pitch their services.

A Richmond startup thinks there’s a market for treating health care more like car repairs – encouraging employees to pay out-of-pocket for routine tune-ups and letting insurance cover the accidents and emergencies.

Many repair shops around Richmond say they're seeing more business as consumers try to reign in other spending to make up for the dollars they're pumping into gas tanks. Some shop owners say the increase is double or triple what they were doing a year ago.

The owners of Common Groundz coffee shop – located on a formerly beat-up section of Broad Street near VCU – are trying to keep their business above Groundz.

Scott King and Mark Fichter are negotiating with creditors, cutting payroll expenses by working more shifts themselves and scrapping traditional advertising in favor of a more grass-roots approach.

The Venture Forum has launched a mentoring program, which will pair veteran CEOs of growth businesses with their less experienced counterparts for two hours of mentoring each month.

Richmond City Auditor Umesh Dalal has a penchant for finding ways to save money – big money –that would make major corporations green with envy. He's also a former small business owner. BizSense spoke with Dalal last week to see what sort of recommendations he might have for the area’s small businesses.

Eight Israeli life science startups will establish their worldwide headquarters in Richmond.

“This is clinical and scientific economic development,” said Donna Edmonds, the head of the nascent Virginia Biosciences Commercialization Center (VBCC), an off-shoot of the Virginia BioTechnology Research Park that helped lure the companies to town.