Venture
Update Vol VII, #2, March 2003
Done Deals
Durham - Inspire Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ISPH, www.inspirepharm.com) has raised $67.5 million in a secondary stock offering. The company had anticipated selling 4 million shares, but it ended up selling 5 million shares at a price of $13.50. The company develops pharmaceuticals that help defend against dust, pollutants, bacteria and viruses. Inspire also raised an additional $9.5 million from its stock offering when the firms handling the stock placement -- Deutsche Bank Securities and U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray -- exercised their own over-allotment options of 750,000 shares. Contact Mary Bennett (919.941.9777 x245).
Durham - OncoGenome Sciences, a Belgium-based developer of clinical diagnostic testing services with U.S. headquarters in Durham, has raised 14 million EURO (over $15 million) in its first round of venture capital. Investors included a group of European firms from Belgium and Germany. Officials said they plan to use the funding to rapidly develop OncoGenome's assay technology to support the company's research and development operations in Belgium and its clinical and business development teams in North Carolina. OncoGenome is dedicated to the development of clinical diagnostic testing services and kits. Contact Joseph Bigley (919.593.3152).
Winston-Salem - Targacept (www.targacept.com), a developer of drugs for neurological and gastrointestinal diseases, raised an additional $14 million in venture capital, bringing the total funds raised in its second round to $60 million. Leading the investment was London-based Nomura International's Healthcare Private Equity Group. Other participating investors included Oxford Bioscience Partners, JAFCO, Cogene Biotech Ventures, Bison Capital and Rock Castle Ventures. Late last year, a group of investors led a $46 million funding. Currently, Targacept is working on developing treatments for Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, depression, pain, anxiety disorders and schizophrenia. Contact Alan Musso (336.480.2186).
Cary - Arsenal Digital Solutions (www.arsenaldigital.com) has raised $10.5 million in its fourth round of venture capital, bringing the company's total funding to more than $63 million. Contributing investors in this round of financing include Covestco, Southeast Interactive Technology Funds and Southern Cross Capital. The proceeds from this financing will be used to expand services for customers and partners and to enhance business development. Arsenal provides storage management services which are focused on protecting a company's data and ensuring the firm's continuity of business operations. Contact Steve Siegel (919.466.6707).
RTP - StemCo Biomedical, Inc. (www.stemcobiomedical.com) raised $9.8 million in its second round of venture capital, led by Intersouth Partners and The Aurora Funds. New investors in this series B round of financing included Becton Dickinson Ventures, The Trelys Funds, L.P., Tall Oaks Capital Partners and other individuals. The company develops products designed to improve therapeutic transplantation of adult stem and progenitor cells that come from bone marrow, peripheral blood or umbilical cord blood. Contact Jonathon Lawrie (919.484.2571).
Raleigh - Draper Fisher Jurveston (www.dfj.com) and SI Partners have partnered to raise a new venture capital fund for early-stage technology investments in the Southeast, with plans to operate out of the Research Triangle. The new firm, Draper SI, will look for investments in companies from North Carolina to Florida. Draper SI will be headed by Randy Glein, who told reporters he plans to move from Chicago to the RTP to open the new office once the fund is raised. Glein would not estimate size of the firm's first fund, but he said he expected the fund to be raised by the end of the year. Contact Randy Glein (239.561.4704).
Charlotte - Venetica (www.venetica.com), a provider of content integration software, has raised $7 million in first round venture capital from Charles River Ventures and General Catalyst Partners. Venetica will use the venture capital towards sales, marketing and engineering, in hopes of accelerating revenue growth and solidifying the company's position in the content integration market. Venetica offers a Java-based software product that enables access to digital content regardless of how it is stored. The product is designed to help large organizations reduce the cost and complexity of integrating applications distributed across various systems. Contact Amy Cojack (704.926-3000).
Raleigh - Oculan Corp. (www.oculan.com) secured $5 million from affiliates of Soros Private Equity Partners to market its IT infrastructure and security management platforms. The money raised will be used to expand Oculan's channel programs and bring the company to profitability. Oculan designs its IT infrastructure and security management platforms specifically for small to mid-sized businesses. Contact Darrek Porter (919.534.0500).
Morrisville - LiveWire Logic, Inc. (www.livewirelogic.com) has closed on $1.5 million in additional venture capital. Research Triangle Ventures of Raleigh and Gray Ventures of Atlanta led the investment. Other investors included truePilot, Tri-State Investment Group and Atlantis Group, all of which participated in a previous round. LiveWire has raised a total of $7 million in venture capital since it began operations in 2000, according to reports. The company, which has 15 employees, develops software called RealDialog that adds automated online customer services to Web pages. Contact Mike Lough (919.234.2163).
Durham - Trimeris Inc.'s (www.trimeris.com) anti-HIV drug, FUZEON, has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) after a six-month priority review. Trimeris has been collaborating with New Jersey-based Hoffmann-La Roche (Roche). Unlike all currently approved anti-HIV drugs, FUZEON blocks the virus from entering the human immune cell, preventing HIV replication that can devastate the immune systems of HIV infected individuals. Because initial demand for FUZEON may exceed supply, company officials are developing a distribution plan to provide FUZEON to patients and to ensure uninterrupted supply to patients once they begin therapy. Contact Robin Fastenau (919.419.6050).
Chapel Hill - POZEN Inc. (Nasdaq: POZN, www.pozen.com), a pharmaceutical development company, announced that its New Drug Application (NDA) for MT 300 -- developed to treat migraines -- has been accepted for filing by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Filing acceptance occurs when the FDA determines that all of the required elements necessary for a complete review have been included in the application. POZEN submitted its NDA on December 17, 2002, seeking marketing approval in the U.S. for MT 300 for the acute treatment of migraine. MT 300 is being developed as a product containing dihydroergotamine mesylate (DHE) in a convenient pre-filled syringe. Contact Matt Czajkowski (919.913.1030).
RTP - The N.C. Biotechnology Center (www.ncbiotech.org) will open a satellite office in Winston-Salem in June 2003 to help biotechnology companies in the Triad form partnerships with investors and other firms. Several groups in Winston-Salem have agreed to contribute to N.C. Biotech's expansion. Wake Forest University will donate $200,000 over two years and is offering free office space in the Piedmont Triad Research Park. Forsyth Technical Community College and nonprofit WinstonNet will also equip the offices with computers and Internet service. Contact Barry Teater (919.541.9366).
RTP - Tranzyme Inc. (www.tranzyme.com), the RTP laboratory of the Alabama-based biotechnology company, has received a $500,000 grant from the Institute For the Study of Aging (ISOA) to conduct gene research on Alzheimer's disease. Tranzyme will use its TranzVector gene delivery system to create neuronal cell lines expressing single or multiple Alzheimer's disease-related genes. The funding will also help Tranzyme create new animal models that will be used for Alzheimer's disease drug discovery. Tranzyme is focused on the discovery of innovative therapies for neurosensory diseases. ISOA is a biomedical venture philanthropy that works to fund the discovery and development of new therapies to prevent and treat cognitive aging and Alzheimer's disease. Contact Vipin Garg (919.597.6614).
RTP - The Council for Entrepreneurial Development (www.cednc.org) announced its speakers for Venture 2003. Eliot Spitzer, New York's Attorney General and the nation's leading crusader for corporate reform, together with Robert Ingram, Vice Chair of Pharmaceuticals and former COO of GlaxoSmithKline, will provide keynote remarks. Other speakers include venture capitalist and Fortune columnist Stewart Alsop and Duke University's Coach Mike Krzyzewski.
Scheduled for April 22-23, 2003, in Chapel Hill, NC, Venture 2003 will continue its 20-year tradition of showcasing North Carolina's strongest investment opportunities to venture capitalists and financiers. In addition to offering a strong speaker lineup, CED selected a total of 23 companies to present at the conference. For more information on Venture 2003, including a schedule of events and details on the presenting companies, visit www.cednc.org/venture/2003. Contact Tracy Stutz (919.549.7500 ext 117).
MindValve, Inc. - Charlotte, NC
(Note: MindValve is an early-stage presenting
company at CED's upcoming Venture 2003 conference in
April)
What if your company had the technology to analyze its business data, making it possible to understand and predict important influencers of customer satisfaction, loyalty and retention? Charlotte-based MindValve Inc. is developing systems to give companies such analytic capabilities.
MindValve combines data mining techniques with predictive analytics to create business intelligence solutions designed to give businesses the ability to better understand its customers. By analyzing transactional, survey and third party data to segment customers and predict customer behavior, the company's solutions are designed for use by business managers particularly in the banking and financial services industries.
Mining applications, based on algorithms, scan vast amounts of data seeking patterns (such as a grocery shopper buying bagels and cream cheese). MindValve employs real time advantage (RTA) technology that allows firms to create "what if" scenarios when analyzing data. Its "conceptual clustering" theory differs from data mining programs offered by other institutes that crunch large amounts of numbers to discern trends.
In conjunction with MindValve's RTA technology, officials said MindValve's predictive capabilities allow businesses to forecast customer responses to campaigns, product offerings or changes in service levels.
MindValve CEO David Maw said he was excited to be a part of Venture 2003. "It's a great opportunity to network with investors from across the region to show them our predictive analytic and business intelligence solutions" Maw said. Contact David Maw (704.602.3364)
Venture 2003
April 22-23, 2003
The Friday Center
Chapel Hill, NC
www.cednc.org/venture/2003
Biotech 2003
May 21, 2003
Sheraton Imperial Hotel and Convention Center RTP,
NC
www.cednc.org/biotech/2003
For more information, visit the CED Web site (www.cednc.org) or call 919-549-7500.
Research Triangle Venture Update is published by the Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED), a non-profit organization located in Research Triangle Park, N.C.