Venture
Update Vol VI, #3, March, 2002
RTP—Norak Biosciences (www.norakbio.com), a biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of drugs that regulate G protein-coupled receptors, secured $13 million in Series B financing. Norak's Series A investors Intersouth Partners and Aurora Funds were joined by four new investors, including Noro-Moseley Partners, who led the round, Mitsui & Co. Venture Partners, plus two passive investors, Alexandria Real Estate Equities and Koch Enterprises. This financing will allow Norak to accelerate its internal drug discovery program in 2002. A company spokesperson said Norak will add the necessary staff and additional equipment and compound libraries, to achieve its mission of becoming a worldwide leader in the discovery and development of drugs that regulate G protein-coupled receptors. Contact: Roger Blevins (919.248.8000)
Morrisville - NetOctave, Inc. (www.netoctave.com), a developer of security processors and security accelerator boards for the SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), IPsec (Internet Protocol Security), and IP Storage markets, secured a second round of equity funding of $7.8 million. Intersouth Partners led the round, and Intel Communications Fund, Kitty Hawk Capital, MCNC, North Carolina Enterprise Fund, L.P and Wakefield Group also participated. Contact: David Mountain (919.463.9903)
Durham - AppGate (www.appgate.com), a provider of e-security software and hardware network solutions for small to large enterprises, secured $4 million as part of its Series C financing. Led by investors ABN AMRO Capital and GE Equity, this third round of funding will be used for the continued expansion of product development and sales and marketing efforts. AppGate has major offices in Durham, North Carolina and Gothenburg, Sweden and employees about 50 workers worldwide. Contact: Aimee Ridgway (919.765.5324)
Raleigh - nTouch Research (www.ntouchresearch.com) closed on all but $1 million of its $3.6 million third round led by Durham-based Intersouth Partners and Canaan Partners, Rowayton, Conn. No closing date has been set for the ongoing round. Founded in 1997, nTouch is a site management organization, which helps doctors and physician groups recruit patients and principal investigators, manage contracts, budgets, and study set-ups for Phase II and III clinical trials of age-related chronic diseases. The company, which operates 15 clinical research centers nationally, plans to acquire or open clinical research centers in five to ten more cities this year with the funding. Contact: Lee Palles (919.872.7223)
Chapel Hill - MoliChem Medicines (www.molichem.com), recently received an additional $1.5 million in funding. Two of its shareholders exercised options to purchase additional stock in the company. Dacha Capital, Inc. and Multivox Marketing, Inc., both located in Montreal, each invested an additional $750,000 in MoliChem. The funds will be used for more clinical studies of its Moli1901 compound which is designed to treat disease cystic fibrosis. Contact: Luis Molina (919.960.2750)
Charlotte - MindValve (www.mindvalve.com), a developer of real-time analytics software, announced that it has spun out from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and has raised up to $1 million in seed funding from Academy Funds. The company has also gained an interim CEO from Academy Funds. David Maw, a partner at Academy Funds, will serve as MindValve's chief executive for the next few months until an experienced management team can be put together. Contact: Mirsad Hadzikadic (mirsad@mindvalve.com)
CropSolution, Inc.
CropSolution, Inc. (www.cropsolution.com),
an agrochemical start-up in Morrisville, is hoping to
make a difference in the farming industry through the
development and deployment of chemicals to protect
crops from weeds, diseases, and insect pests. The
15-person company is fortunate to have Ambassador
Clayton Yeutter, one of America's foremost experts in
agriculture, food and international trade, as its
chairman. Ambassador Yeutter is the former Secretary
of Agriculture under the Bush administration, former
President and CEO of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange,
and a past board member of a handful of Fortune 500
companies.
Founded by two alums of Novartis and Paradigm, CropSolution aims to "become the very best discoverer and developer of agrochemicals." The company's president, Scott Uknes, says its chemical control mission goes back to "anything we can do to reduce the toll on farmers, allow for less land to be used for safe food production, allow farmers to have an economic advantage in a risky, weather-dependent business."
Using a patented, proprietary technology called Evolutionary ChemistryTM, CropSolution reduces the time it takes to discover and optimize a new agrochemical, saving years from the development timeline. In addition to their 4,000 sq. ft lab space in Morrisville, the company has a satellite operation for chemistry in Silicon Valley, California - which gives it a presence in the two best places in the world for chemistry (California) and agricultural biotechnology (RTP), the founders say.
The Aurora Funds, Research Triangle Ventures, and ATP Capital of New York contributed to CropSolution's bridge financing. The company expects to announce its Series A financing led by Aurora Funds this spring. CropSolution was also recently selected to present at CED's Venture 2002 conference, April 30-May 1, 2002.
"The Triangle area is arguably the best place in the country to build a company like ours," Eric Ward, CEO, adds. "Three major players of the agribusiness industry - Aventis CropScience (soon to be Bayer), BASF and Syngenta - are here along with a core of emergent companies and a core of venture capital and other services. We couldn't ask for more."
Contact: Eric Ward or Scott Uknes (919.654.0399)
Raleigh - LipoScience Inc. (formerly LipoMed Inc.), a medical technology firm that has a test to gauge a patient's risk of cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in the world, filed on March 1 for an initial public offering. LipoScience did not say in the preliminary prospectus how many common shares are being sold or the price range. The company seeks a Nasdaq listing under the symbol "LIPO" (Nasdaq:LIPO), and it hired Merrill Lynch, U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray, Thomas Weisel Partners and Pacific Growth Equities to manage the IPO. Contact: Richard Franco (rfranco@lipoprofile.com)
RTP - German chemical giant Bayer AG (www.bayer.com) announced that it has selected Research Triangle Park over Kansas City, Mo., to become the headquarters of its newly formed crop science business, which is being formed through a merger with RTP-based Aventis CropScience. The combined business' general management, administrative, business operations and regulatory activities will be based in RTP. Kansas City, which was home to Bayer's former U.S. crop protection headquarters, will gain the new U.S. regional crop science sales office of the combined company.
Morrisville - SciQuest, Inc. (Nasdaq: SQST) (www.sciquest.com) has acquired New Hampshire-based Textco, a developer of software that helps scientists track DNA construction and sequence analysis projects. Biotechnology and pharmaceutical researchers primarily use Textco's software. Textco's signature product, the Gene Construction Kit, has been operating on computers at research facilities since 1984. The merger means that nearly 20,000 molecular biology researchers and dozens of large research enterprises join SciQuest customer ranks. The combined product portfolio will include software for gene cloning projects, sequence analyses, and experiment tracking via electronic notebooks. Contact: Stephen Wiehe (swiehe@sciquest.com)
RTP - Paradigm announced that John E. Hamer, Ph.D., the company's chief scientific officer, has been appointed interim Chief Executive Officer and President. A global search will be conducted to replace John Ryals, the former CEO and President, who was officially terminated February 26. Interim CEO and President, Dr. Hamer received his Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of California, Davis in 1987. Prior to joining the company, Dr. Hamer was a biology professor at Purdue University. Paradigm Genetics, Inc. (Nasdaq: PDGM), which has about 250 employees, is an integrated life sciences company developing novel technologies to speed the discovery of products for the advancement of human health, agriculture and nutrition. Contact: John Hamer (919.425.3000)
CED is pleased to announce that Ammar Hanafi, vice-president of business development, Cisco Systems, and "the force behind the Cisco merger and acquisition (M&A) machine" will join Steve Jurvetson, managing director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, at its Venture 2002 conference - scheduled for April 30-May 1, 2002. Hanafi has a wide range of experience with mergers and acquisitions having been at Cisco since July 1997 and worked on some of its largest acquisitions; Jurvetson, one of the nation's leading venture capitalists, was recently chosen by Upside Magazine as one of the 100 "most influential people in the digital world" and by Forbes as one of "Tech's Best Venture Investors."
In addition to such leading keynote speakers and presentations by 29 of North Carolina's most promising companies representing the state's diverse array of industries, attendees won't want to miss an exceptional panel with the region's leading institutional investors from the North Carolina State Pension Fund; Carolina Investment Office; Duke Management Company; and Duke Endowment.
To read the presenting companies' descriptions or learn more about Venture 2002, visit www.cednc.org/venture/2002.
Venture
2002
April 30 - May 1, 2002
The Friday Center
Chapel Hill, NC
Biotech
2002
May 20, 2002
Sheraton Imperial Hotel
RTP, NC
For more information, visit the CED Web site (www.cednc.org) or call 919.549.7500.
CED is a private non-profit organization supported, in part, by corporate contributions, including funding from Kauffman Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and Kilpatrick Stockton, L.L.P.
Research Triangle Venture Update is published by the Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED), a non-profit organization located in Research Triangle Park, N.C.