Venture
Update Vol. VII, #10, Dec. 2003 / Jan. 2004
NOTE: This issue of Venture Update is a special two-month holiday edition. CED will resume its normal publication schedule for the next Venture Update, which will be distributed at the end of the month in late January 2004
Done Deals
Cary - Arsenal Digital Solutions (www.arsenaldigital.com) has closed an $11 million round of debt financing. The company has now raised a total of $86 million in equity and debt funding. Arsenal will use this funding to support the company's expansion efforts. The company currently serves more than 800 customers in 18 cities. Arsenal delivers its outsourced storage management services through service providers, such as AT&T, NTT/Verio, AboveNet, Terremark Worldwide and Redundant Networks. Contact Steve Siegel (919.466.6707).
Charlotte - US LEC Corp. (www.uslec.com) has raised $10 million of equity capital in a private placement of 2 million shares of US LEC Class A common stock from several institutional investors. US LEC's founders also sold 500,000 shares in the private offering. Kaufman Bros., L.P. served as the placement agent in this transaction. US LEC plans to use the net proceeds from this private offering for general corporate purposes, including acquisitions, as well the repayment of a portion of outstanding debt to its senior lenders. Contact Jennifer Sharpe (704.319.1135).
Charlotte - Ephinay Corporation (www.ephinay.com) has received a $10 million capital investment from Trinity Ventures to facilitate further growth of Ephinay's financial process outsourcing business. Trinity joins ChrysCapital as one of Ephinay's major investors. Ephinay provides financial process outsourcing solutions to companies. Contact Michael D. Gantt (704.369.2580).
Morrisville - Sicel Technologies, Inc. (www.siceltech.com), a medical device company making monitoring devices to aid oncologists, has completed a $6 million funding round that was three times the company's initial target. Burton Advisers of London led Sicel's “up-round” of funding, which also included other institutional investors, healthcare funds and private investors. Sicel will use the funding in the commercial launch of Sicel's first two products, both of which address the radiation oncology market. Sicel's “flagship” product is an in vivo radiation sensor, designed to be implanted into a tumor in a patient to monitor radiation therapy. The device communicates radiation dose readings from the body to an external monitor via radio frequency coupling. Sicel's second product is a radiation dosimeter designed to stick on the skin of the patient like a “Band-Aid.” Contact Dr. Robert D. Black (919.465.2236 x222).
Cary - FormRouter (www.formrouter.com) has raised $1 million of private funding from undisclosed friends and family. This round of funding will be used to promote FormRouter's new release, FormRouter.NET, which helps organizations create and host forms online and retrieve responses directly to their desktop databases without any programming. In addition, the company will utilize these funds to boost its work force, which currently consists of eight employees. FormRouter officials said the money should make the company profitable without seeking additional fund raising. Contact Kurt Kaliebe (919.469.1984).
Cary - SAS (www.sas.com) has acquired Canada-based RiskAdvisory, a provider of risk management consulting and software to energy companies. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. RiskAdvisory' four principals will join SAS, adding more than 65 years of experience in energy trading to SAS' risk management domain expertise. The acquisition is SAS' seventh acquisition since 2000. The acquisition of RiskAdvisory comes six months after SAS' June 2003 acquisition of OpRisk Analytics, another risk management company. Contact Kris Balic (919.677.8000).
On the Up
ISIC Corp. Cary, NC
Two former Cisco employees are leading a Cary-based chip design company to improve the performance of Internet routers and switches. Dr. Mihailo Stojancic and Marc Edwards, each with years of experience in networking and routers, founded ISIC Corp. in October 2002.
ISIC (www.isiccorp.com), which stands for “Internet Specific Integrated Circuits,” is developing network coprocessors based on patent-pending algorithms that Stojancic developed. These network coprocessors are designed with “embedded DRAM technology,” a cutting-edge process that combines memory and logic functions on a single chip. The chips are designed to work in search engine switches and routers to assist in functions like packet flow classification and table processing.
Company officials said their proprietary search engine algorithms offer an advantage in router storage and processing. Combining these algorithms with embedded DRAM technology results in components with improved densities, lookup speeds and power dissipation. When using ISIC's technology, a chip can have up to ten times the density and roughly two times the performance of other competitive chips.
Featured as a promising new company at CED's Technology Forum in October 2003, ISIC not only has unique technology but also a seasoned management team. Both of ISIC's co-founders have extensive careers in networking and data communications. Stojancic, ISIC's president and chief technology officer, is an expert in computing systems, networking algorithms and other applications, with over 20 years of industrial and academic experience. He has held technical and managerial positions at Cisco, IBM, NEC, and multiple startup companies. Edwards, ISIC's vice president of engineering, has over 18 years of design and management experience in data communications with Cisco, IBM and others.
ISIC, which has five employees, landed $1 million in seed money from the Academy Funds and MCNC Seed Fund in Spring 2003. The company is now seeking investors for another round of funding.
Contact Mihailo Stojancic (919.653.1921).
New Developments
Durham - The Aurora Funds (www.aurorafunds.com) has made headlines with several announcements recently. The venture capital firm has named Jan Bouten as an Associate. In his new role as Associate, Bouten will serve as part of Aurora's IT investment team, evaluating new opportunities and supporting existing portfolio companies. Aurora also announced that the firm's Doug Gooding has been named president of Regado Biosciences, an early-stage biopharmaceutical company and an Aurora portfolio company. As part of this transition, Gooding will become a Venture Partner with Aurora. In addition, Aurora has named Dr. William New as the firm's first Entrepreneur-in-Residence. New brings more than 40 years of experience as an engineer, physician, entrepreneur and educator. Contact Shawn Ramsey-Kroboth (919. 621.0737).
RTP - POZEN (www.pozen.com), Inspire Pharmaceuticals (www.inspirepharm.com) and Salix Pharmaceuticals (www.salix.com) were incorporated into the NASDAQ Biotechnology Index on Nov. 24. These three biotech companies joined Durham-based Trimeris (www.trimeris.com), which was already on the list. All securities in NASDAQ's Biotechnology Index must be listed on the NASDAQ National Market and meet minimum requirements for market value (at least $200 million), average daily share volume (at least 100,000 shares) and listing on a recognized market for at least six months. Contact Salix's Michael Freeman (919.862.1000).
Chapel Hill - The UNC Kenan-Flagler Center for Entrepreneurship (www.eship.unc.edu) has changed its name and added to its focus. The group's new name is the Center for Entrepreneurship and Family Business. Bill Moore will serve in the newly created role of chairman of the center, and he will provide strategic guidance and fundraising assistance. Jeff Reid remains the center's Director and will continue to oversee Center strategy and operations. Professors Barry Roberts and Robert Bushman will play leading roles as faculty members. The newly named entity will launch new programs in family business, and the group will also continue to build on its traditional strengths in technology entrepreneurship, venture capital and other key areas. Contact Jeff Reid (919.962.2031).
In the Pipeline
Durham - Inspire Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (www.inspirepharm.com) and Allergan have inked a co-promotion agreement in the United States for the drug Elestat, which received FDA approval in October 2003 for the prevention of itching associated with allergic conjunctivitis. Under the terms of the agreement, Inspire will provide California-based Allergan with an up-front payment, and Allergan will pay a royalty to Inspire on Elestat net sales. Inspire will have the primary responsibility for selling, promotional and marketing activities related to Elestat. Allergan and Inspire will work collaboratively on overall product strategy and management. Contact Mary Bennett (919.941.9777 x245).
RTP - AlphaVax (www.alphavax.com) reports that human clinical trials of a potential HIV vaccine have started in South Africa, and one of those first trials will test a preventive AIDS vaccine candidate named AVX101 designed by AlphaVax. AVX101 is intended to prevent people who are uninfected with HIV/AIDS from contracting the disease. The trial of AVX101 is being conducted by the HIV Vaccine Trials Network of the US government's National Institutes of Health, in association with the South African AIDS Vaccine Initiative. A small-scale trial of AVX101 is also underway in the United States. Contact Peter Young (919.595.0400).
RTP - Qualyst, Inc. (www.qualyst.com), has received a two-year, $160,000 grant from the North Carolina Biotechnology Center and The Kenan Institute to conduct collaborative research in partnership with UNC-Chapel Hill. Officials said the grant will fund research in the laboratories of Dr. Dhiren R. Thakker, School of Pharmacy, UNC-Chapel Hill, toward continued development and refinement of technologies for high throughput screening of drug candidates to assess metabolic stability. Contact Scott Neuville (919.754.8500).
RTP - Raindrop Geomagic (www.geomagic.com) has received a $100,000 SBIR Phase I grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to research the use of Morse Theory in reverse engineering. In the computing world, this 100-year-old theory has helped researchers find discrete structure in continuous, smooth data. The theory can be applied to further automate reverse engineering, the process of capturing a physical object and transforming it into a surface model ready for manufacturing. The research could help deliver a sought-after advance in reverse engineering: the ability to automatically create surface patches that follow the direction and features of a triangulated model. Contact Bob Cramblitt (919.481.4599).
Raleigh - Salix Pharmaceuticals (www.salix.com) announced that the FDA has acknowledged receipt of Salix's Nov. 25 amendment to the Rifaximin New Drug Application. The FDA considers the amendment to be a complete response to the October 25, 2002, approvable letter and has assigned a user fee goal date of May 26, 2004, to review and act upon the application. Salix is initially seeking approval to market Rifaximin, a non-systemic, gastrointestinal site-specific antibiotic, as a treatment for travelers' diarrhea. Contact Michael Freeman (919.862.1000).
RTP - Tranzyme, Inc. (www.tranzyme.com) has extended its collaborative agreement with Massachusetts-based NeoGenesis Pharmaceuticals to include additional genes of therapeutic interest. The collaboration will continue in the areas of gene expression and drug discovery and will utilize Tranzyme's “TexT” (Tranz Expression Technology) in support of the chemical genomics program at NeoGenesis. Under the expanded collaboration, NeoGenesis will provide additional sets of disease-associated gene sequences of therapeutic interest. Tranzyme will deliver these genes into different mammalian cell lines and express the proteins using its protein expression technology. Contact Vipin K. Garg (919.597.6605).
Durham - Serenex, Inc. (www.serenex.com), has inked a research agreement with Roche, a Swiss-based drug discovery company, which involves the utilization of Serenex's chemoproteomics technologies within Roche's drug discovery program. The companies plan to jointly evaluate how Serenex's technologies may impact the identification of the most appropriate compounds to advance through drug discovery and development. The agreement provides Roche with access to Serenex's unique technologies. Under the terms of the collaboration, Roche will supply Serenex with small molecule, drug-like compounds. Serenex will use its technologies to screen the Roche compounds against thousands of protein targets simultaneously. Contact George Young (919.281.6001).
Mark Your Calendar!
Venture 2004
April 27-28, 2004
The Friday Center, Chapel Hill, NC
www.cednc.org/venture
For more information, visit the CED Web site (www.cednc.org) or call 919-549-7500.
Venture Update is published by the
Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED)
an entrepreneurial support organization located in the Research Triangle Park, N.C.
Lisa Rowe-Ralls, editor
P.O. Box 13353, RTP, NC 27709
Phone: 919-549-7500
FAX: 919-549-7405
email: news@cednc.org