Venture Update Vol. XI, #7, July 2007
Done Deals
Durham – Constella Group LLC (www.constellagroup.com), a privately-held provider of global health consulting services, is being acquired by SRA International, Inc., a publicly-traded provider of technology and strategic consulting services and solutions to federal government organizations. According to federal filings, SRA will pay approximately $185 million in cash to acquire Constella. SRA plans to establish a new health business unit built around Constella. Contact Sue Ann Pentecost (919.313.7601).
Hickory – CommScope, Inc. (www.commscope.com), a provider of infrastructure solutions for communication networks, has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Andrew Corporation for approximately $2.6 billion. Following the close of the transaction, Andrew will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of CommScope. Contact Betsy H. Lambert (828.323.4873).
Durham – Serenex Inc. (www.serenex.com), an oncology-focused drug discovery and development company, has closed a $31 million Series D oversubscribed financing round. Past investors included Intersouth Partners, Ritchie Capital, Lilly Ventures, Mediphase Venture Partners, Takeda Research Investment and Seaflower Ventures. Four new investors also participated in the round: Cornell Capital Partners, Pearl Street Ventures, MC Life Science Ventures and Pac-Link Bio Venture Capital. Serenex will use the money for developing two new drug candidates and programs focused on antifungal, anti-neurodegenerative, antiviral and other non-oncology research. Serenex has now raised $81 million in venture capital. Contact Michelle Linn (508.419.1555).
Cary – Sapiens International Corporation (www.sapiens.com), a leading global provider of innovative business solutions, has completed a $20 million private placement round led by the Formula Group and institutional investors. The common shares placement was priced at $3. This represents a 12% premium with no warrants. Closing was expected in late June, at which time the Formula Group will remain the controlling shareholder of Sapiens. Contact Roni Al-Dor (+972.8.938.2721).
Durham – Digitalsmiths Corporation (www.digitalsmiths.com) has raised a $6 million Series A round of funding from The Aurora Funds, Chrysalis Ventures and individual investors. Digitalsmiths is the creator of VideoSense, the first platform-agnostic broadband video contextual advertising solution. The funding will enable Digitalsmiths to expand its sales and marketing ranks and accelerate the deployment of VideoSense. Contact James Finch (310.689.7363).
Durham – iContact (www.icontact.com), provider of the leading email marketing and blogging application, today announced it has secured $5.35 million in funding to increase its marketing and customer acquisition efforts. The funding round was led by Updata Partners with participation from North Carolina-based venture firm IDEA Fund Partners. iContact will use the new funds to expand marketing initiatives, increase customer acquisition, and support product development efforts. Contact Chuck Hester (919.459.1451).
Morrisville – INI Power Systems, Inc. (www.inipower.com), the developer of methanol-powered Laminar Flow Fuel Cell (LFFC) systems, has closed a $4 million Series B equity financing led by MHI Energy Partners and a series of private investors. The additional capital will support product development and the further commercialization of the company's innovative technology. Contact Jeffrey Harrison (919.677.7712).
RTP – LaamScience, Inc. (www.laamscience.com), a North Carolina State University spinout with nanotechnology licensed from the school, has raised $2 million in financing from angel investors. The company develops nanocoating technology that kills bacteria and viruses when exposed to light. LaamScience will use the funding to apply the technology to fabrics for hospital products. Contact Tom Roberg (919.954.0096).
Raleigh – CivaTech Oncology (www.civatech.com), an oncology device startup, has raised $800,000 in angel financing. Robert and Claudia Black, the founders of Sicel Technologies, joined forces with Suzanne Babcock in 2006 to found CivaTech and develop a device for the treatment of prostate cancer. The product focus is on low-dose-rate brachytherapy, a type of radiation treatment for cancer utilizing implanted radioactive sources to kill tumor cells. The company's immediate goal is to gather the data needed for FDA clearance of its first product. Contact Claudia A. Black, (919.314.5515).
Raleigh – Arbovax (www.arbovax.com), an early stage vaccine technology development company, closed the first half of a $1.5 million round led by Piedmont Angel Network Two. Management and other individual investors also contributed to the initial round. Arbovax’s core technology offers improved vaccine technology in a cost effective manner and targets diseases such as West Nile and Yellow Fever. Contact Charlton Owensby (704.517.4955).
Charlotte – Global Compliance Services, Inc. (www.globalcompliance.com) has completed the acquisition of Brightline Compliance. Brightline provides online and instructor-led training for more than one million employees across more than 500 organizations, including numerous Fortune 500 companies. Founded and led by former U.S. Department of Justice attorneys, Brightline's training curriculum includes topics such as code of conduct, sexual harassment, workplace violence, and dozens of other ethics and compliance topics. Contact Karen Kistenmacher (704.973.0355).
Cary – Clinication, Inc. (www.clinication.com), a provider of patient adherence management systems has been acquired by Los Angeles, Calif.-based AssistMed, Inc. for an undisclosed amount. Clinication’s software-based solutions instruct, remind, and reward patients -- engaging them in a monitored, self-managed program designed to support long-term adherence with medication and self-care regimens. Contact Leonardo Berezovsky, M.D. (310.877.5505).
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On the Up
PrepChamps, Inc.
Apex, N.C.
Most high school athletes dream of having the chance to play their sport in college. PrepChamps, Inc., a new company that provides an online recruiting tool for high school athletes and college coaches, is helping to make these dreams a reality. Founded in February 2007 by Dean Bundschu, Hal Fischer and Jay Kerr, the goal of PrepChamps is to solve the challenges that many athletes face during the recruiting process by providing the tools they need to showcase their skills and boost their exposure.
PrepChamps, which participated in CED’s Start-Up Speed Dating at Venture 2007 and received CED’s FastTrac Tech Company of the Year award in June, utilizes the recent explosive success of social networking and video uploading on the Internet to draw attention to its own service, dubbed “Recruiting 2.0.” This service controls the social aspects of the Internet with powerful marketing tools that are simple enough for all of the potential recruits to use. The PrepChamps Web site’s basic service is free, and allows members to upload pictures, statistics and sports videos for college scouts to see.
Colleges spend millions of dollars each year to recruit athletes for their schools, but because the process is so expensive, only a very small portion of high school students have a shot at getting recognized. PrepChamps breaks this barrier, giving high school athletes from all locations and of all skill levels a chance to be discovered. The end result is a level playing field for all athletes, not just the stars, to take advantage of.
In recent news, PrepChamps announced a strategic partnership with Elite Combines LLC to launch a series of PrepChamps Elite Combines. The cream of the crop players from high school teams across the nation will come to participate in these NFL-style football combines where they will be tested in strength and agility drills, and compete in position-specific activities. The results will then be posted on the website to allow scouts to look for scholarship athletes.
Competitors in this industry, such as MaxPreps and FanNation, have already been very successful in their endeavors. PrepChamps hopes to see this same success. Their main focus for 2007 is to build awareness and increase user participation of the site, but project a $112 million return in the next three years, based on 3.5x revenue. Contact Dean Bundschu (800.781.1816).[ top ]
New Developments
Raleigh – The Carolinas Photonics Consortium (CPC) (www.carolinasphotonics.com) this week announced the formal signing of the CPC Inter-Institutional Agreement by North Carolina State University (N.C. State), University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC), Western Carolina University (WCU), Clemson University and Duke University. This agreement provides the foundation for collaborative university work aimed at the commercialization of light-based technologies. One of the primary goals of the Carolinas Photonics Consortium is the commercialization of photonics-based research by awarding funds to competitively submitted proposals from the five campuses. Contact Jeff Conley (864.325.4700).
Durham – Duke’s Pratt Engineering School (www.duke.edu) has announced its development of a new three-dimensional ultrasound scanner that may help with minimally invasive brain surgeries and the detection of brain tumor locations. Doctors say that it may be useful when magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) are unavailable. The work was supported by the National Institutes of Health. Contact Patrick Wolf (919.660.5114).
RTP – North Carolina Biosciences Organization (NCBIO) (www.ncbioscience.org) and the North Carolina Entrepreneurial Association (NCEA) released information which stated that North Carolina companies that were eligible for the state’s Qualified Business Venture Tax Credit raised $1.7 billion in equity financing between 1999 and 2006. NCBIO and NCEA compiled media reports along with information from CED. If approved by the House, the Credit would extend to 2010. Contact Sam Taylor (919.281.8960).
Morrisville – etrials Worldwide, Inc. (www.etrials.com), an eClinical software and services company dedicated to enabling their partners to bring new drugs to market faster and more efficiently, has been awarded four new projects worth $1.7 million over the next three years. The projects are with existing pharmaceutical customers and will cover almost 300 sites across North and South America and Europe. The projects cover four separate therapeutic areas, in multiple phases – rheumatology, otolaryngology, endocrinology, and neonatology. Contact Mike Banas (312.553.6704).
Raleigh – NC IDEA (www.ncidea.org), a nonprofit organization with the mission to create jobs through commercialization of research innovation, has awarded $215,000 in “proof of concept” as part of its bi-annual grant program. The five early-stage companies who received the funding are A-B-Sea, AP Solutions, Beecoz, Cytex and Oncoscope. The next grant application process is planned for the fall of 2007. Contact Amy Barger (919.532.1114).[ top ]
In the Pipeline
Durham – Semprius, Inc. (www.semprius.com), a semiconductor technology company, has received a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I Grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The SBIR Phase I project will demonstrate printing of fully formed thin-film transistors on plastic substrates for use as high-performance backplanes in flexible displays. Contact Karl von Gunten (919.931.1434).
RTP – Zen-Bio (www.zen-bio.com), a leading provider of human cells for metabolic disease research, has received a 12 month Phase I SBIR grant worth $185,000 from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Zen-Bio hopes to help resolve the growing issue of obesity by isolating and culturing skeletal muscle cells, sites of insulin resistance in obese individuals, to develop a Human Myocytes and Adipocyte Co-culture system. By developing this system, researchers can look at the complex interactions between the two cell types involved in the onset Type 2 diabetes. Contact Dawn Stricker (919-547-0692).
Cary – BioLink Life Sciences, Inc. (www.biolinkonline.com), a pharmaceutical firm focused on improvement of registered drugs, has receipt of a Phase 1 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant award by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and matching funding by the North Carolina Department of Commerce, totaling $158,000. The awards will support BioLink’s development of a novel iron supplement for people with iron deficiency (anemia). Contact Natalia Voronina (495.937.7479).
RTP – Tranzyme Pharma (www.tranzyme.com), a biopharmaceutical company developing small molecule drugs for the treatment of gastrointestinal and metabolic diseases, has announced positive results for its novel ghrelin agonist, TZP-101, in accelerating gastric emptying in diabetic patients with gastroparesis. Tranzyme is developing TZP-101 as a first-in-class gastroprokinetic agent for the treatment of severe gastroparesis and post-operative ileus (POI). Contact Vipin Garg, Ph.D. (919.434.6643).
Raleigh – Erimos Pharmaceuticals (www.erimos.com) has announced their commencement of Phase I clinical trials for Therameprocol (EM-1421). Therameprocol, a synthetic tetra-methylated derivative of nordihydroguaiaretic acid (NDGA), is Erimos’ lead product candidate and is used for the treatment of solid tumors that are unresponsive to conventional therapy. The Phase I study is designed to determine the safety and maximum level of tolerance for the weekly administered drug. Contact Nancy Wiersma (919.821.5204).
RTP – RTI International (www.rti.org) has announced its creation of a more accurate selection of geospatial tools that provide a more enhanced use of NHDPlus, a hydrologic mapping system. These tools allow for precise identification of locations for monitoring systems and also allow for more accurate predictions of upstream and downstream pollution effects. Contact Lisa Bistreich (919.316.3596).
Burlington – Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings (LabCorp) (www.labcorp.com) has inked a license agreement with Veridex, LLC, a Johnson & Johnson company. LabCorp will work with Veridex to commercialize nucleic acid testing technology used to detect the presence of methylated GST-Pi, a key tissue marker associated with prostate cancer. LabCorp is the first national, full-service clinical laboratory to license this new technology. The terms of the agreement were undisclosed. Contact Pamela Sherry (336.222.7566).
RTP – SunTech Medical (www.suntechmed.com) has received FDA clearance for the SunTech 247 Diagnostic Station – a modular device that will provide manual and automated blood pressure as well as optional temperature and SpO2 measurements. The SunTech 247 will launch into global distribution beginning in August. Contact Michelle Wiggins (919.654.2344).
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Mark Your Calendar!
CED's Opportunity Conference
September 10-11, 2007
SunSpree Resort
Wrightsville Beach, N.C.
CED's Tech Conference
October 10-11, 2007
The Friday Center
Chapel Hill, N.C.
Venture Update is published by the
Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED)
an entrepreneurial support organization located in the Research Triangle Park, N.C.
Robert Albright, editor
P.O. Box 13353, RTP, NC 27709
Phone: 919-549-7500
FAX: 919-549-7405
email: news@cednc.org