Two Kentucky Energy Startups receive funding
March 2, 2010
Wellhead Energy Systems, located in Somerset, was approved for an investment of up to $500,000 to develop generator systems that can be placed near natural gas wells to produce electricity for rural communities. Southeast Biofuels, in Mt. Sterling, was approved for a grant of up to $30,000 to develop a portable system that can produce ethanol using sorghum as a feedstock. Many natural gas wells in Kentucky’s rural areas are unproductive because they lack access to transport pipelines. Wellhead Energy Systems’ technology can take natural gas from these isolated wells, clean it, compress it and feed it into a self-contained, on-site generator system. The natural gas-powered generators convert the gas into electricity for use by local utilities, rural residents and industrial locations.
“By placing the generators closer to electrical users, our company plans to create a distributed energy supply to provide secure and reliable electrical power for rural communities,” said David Weddle, president and CEO of Wellhead. “We are also going to use an existing local manufacturer to produce our generator units, which will help keep and create jobs in the Somersetarea.”
Southeast Biofuels is developing a portable system to convert sweet sorghum into ethanol for use as a fuel additive. The modular fermentation system will produce the liquid fuel at sites where the sorghum feed stock is grown and harvested. Sweet sorghum is similar to corn and grows well inKentucky, even on marginal lands. The stalks and leaves can be processed in ways similar to sugar cane, with the juice pressed out so it can be fermented into ethanol.
“We plan to initially focus on expanding existing sorghum crops, and then later extending our production onto marginal lands,” said Stephen Popyach, president of Southeast Biofuels. “Our crops will help keep money within the Kentucky economy that is currently flowing out to pay for petroleum fuels. We’ll also help existing farms earn an income by paying to use their land to grow our crops.”
Wellhead Energy Systems, located in Somerset, was approved for an investment of up to $500,000 to develop generator systems that can be placed near natural gas wells to produce electricity for rural communities. Southeast Biofuels, in Mt. Sterling, was approved for a grant of up to $30,000 to develop a portable system that can produce ethanol using sorghum as a feedstock. Many natural gas wells in Kentucky’s rural areas are unproductive because they lack access to transport pipelines. Wellhead Energy Systems’ technology can take natural gas from these isolated wells, clean it, compress it and feed it into a self-contained, on-site generator system. The natural gas-powered generators convert the gas into electricity for use by local utilities, rural residents and industrial locations.
“By placing the generators closer to electrical users, our company plans to create a distributed energy supply to provide secure and reliable electrical power for rural communities,” said David Weddle, president and CEO of Wellhead. “We are also going to use an existing local manufacturer to produce our generator units, which will help keep and create jobs in the Somerset area.”
Southeast Biofuels is developing a portable system to convert sweet sorghum into ethanol for use as a fuel additive. The modular fermentation system will produce the liquid fuel at sites where the sorghum feed stock is grown and harvested. Sweet sorghum is similar to corn and grows well in Kentucky, even on marginal lands. The stalks and leaves can be processed in ways similar to sugar cane, with the juice pressed out so it can be fermented into ethanol.
“We plan to initially focus on expanding existing sorghum crops, and then later extending our production onto marginal lands,” said Stephen Popyach, president of Southeast Biofuels. “Our crops will help keep money within the Kentucky economy that is currently flowing out to pay for petroleum fuels. We’ll also help existing farms earn an income by paying to use their land to grow our crops.”
Paratechs received funding
February 26, 2010
Paratechs received $120,000 from the Cabinet for Economic Development’s High-Tech Investment Pool.ParaTechs has an exclusive license to market a patented special line of insect cells developed at the University of Kentucky that employs the baculovirus expression vector system used to manufacture proteins for use in vaccines and therapeutics to prevent or treat a wide range of diseases. The technology improves protein production and helps lower drug manufacturing costs
Backupify: good news and Bad news
February 16, 2010
Louisville based Backupify recently raised and angel round from some prominent national investors and was featured on Techcrunch. That is the good news. The bad news is founder Rob May states that the company will probably be moving from Kentucky soon. The idea that you have to build these type of web services only in Silicon Valley or New York or Boston has been debunked by many. The growth of Boulder has a tech hub is one good example. Rob may have had to make this promise in order to raise the funding but I think he should stand up, be a man, and build his company in Louisville.
Innovation Scorecard and playbook
January 26, 2010
Bill Warner, A technology entrepreneur in Boston posted the following Scorecard and play book for building an innovation economy. Bill is in Boston but this simple methodology is applicable elsewhere including Kentucky. We need plays and metrics with which to judge the success of efforts to boost a technology cluster. Our politicians often tout the work they are doing in these areas but use outdated or no methodology at all to judge their impact and many of the tactics are outdated or ineffective. This might give us a common language.
Scorecard
Nine companies receive matching funds from the state
January 25, 2010
Through the SBIR-STTR matching funds program:
Four Tigers, near Paris, is developing blackberry-based cosmetics, dietary supplements, food and medical products that offer the fruit’s potent anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties.
www.four-tigers.com
NaugaNeedles, of Louisville, produces nano-scale probes and electrodes for use in mechanical, electrical, and electrochemical sensing and manipulation at cellular and molecular levels.
www.nauganeedles.com
SCR, of Louisville, is developing a long-term implantable counterpulsation medical device to treat heart failure patients who may be responsive to a moderate level of cardiac assistance.
www.scrdevelopmentgroup.com
Topasol, of Lexington, produces nanoparticles for use in new coatings and composites for sensors, biocides, mar-resistant materials, optical devices, solar cells and colorings.
www.topasol.com
Transposagen, of Lexington, uses mobile DNA technology (transposons) to develop genetically modified laboratory rats that can mimic human diseases and be used for medical research.
www.transposagenbio.com
ApoImmune, of Louisville, is developing vaccines to treat cancer and prevent infectious diseases, as well as therapies to improve patient tolerance to transplanted organs and cells.
www.apoimmune.com
NuForm Materials, near Georgetown, makes ceramic materials for use in automotive and aerospace composites that can help lower cost and improve performance and fuel efficiency.
www.nuformmaterials.com
PGxl Laboratories, of Louisville, is studying how genetics affect the way patients react to medicines to help physicians select drugs and adjust dosages to avoid adverse drug reactions.
www.pgxlab.com
3H Company, of Lexington, is focusing on clean coal technology and testing its carbon sequestration technology designed to capture and store carbon dioxide underground.
Summitt Biosciences receives 250K
December 14, 2009
Summit Biosciences, a specialty pharmaceuticals business will expand its operation investing over $5 million in new people & facilities. The company received 250K from the state’s high-tech investment pool.
Summit develops and manufactures generic prescription and new over-the-counter (OTC) pharmaceutical products administered to patients by means of a nasal spray. The company is also developing new OTC nasal spray products for which it will apply for patents and plans to begin manufacturing in the first quarter of 2010. To date, Summit has secured a partnership with a publicly traded generic-drug manufacturing company to jointly develop generic versions of five FDA-approved nasal spray products, including one to treat osteoporosis and others used to treat migraine headaches. The company has also secured a contract manufacturing agreement with a company to develop and make a new nasal spray product to treat pain.
Comparing entrepreneurial cultures
November 6, 2009
Below are some excerpts from an article on xconomy about the startup scenes in Boston, Boulder and Seattle. I highlighted the statements I thought were important to or resembled Kentucky and other areas trying build high-tech ecosystems.
Brad Feld of TechStars and Foundry Group gave a brief history of the startup scene in Boulder, CO—useful for any city with entrepreneurial aspirations. “When I showed up in ’95, what I found was on the software side you had a lot of smart engineering talent but you didn’t have much else. A handful of entrepreneurial companies in storage and cable infrastructure. Not much in the way of entrepreneurial executive leadership other than from these pockets. In the mid-90s, because of the counter-culture community—and the Internet was purpose-built for places like Boulder—you had a lot of people who were independent, very smart, doing their own things suddenly intersecting with a medium that allows you to be anywhere. It’s 100,000 people plus 25,000 college students. A pretty small town, but it has the largest percentage, per capita, in the United States of computer scientists and PhDs. Yet there wasn’t a broad wave of entrepreneurial experience,” Feld said.
“In the mid-to-late 90s, there was huge activity around the Internet. Anybody with a pulse could get a company started. The predictable thing eventually happened, there was a lot of wreckage. But from ‘95-2001, Boulder had imported a lot of executive talent—CEOs, VP sales, engineering leadership. We also had a lot of entrepreneurs who had one or two companies in that cycle. So by 2003, people were starting to come back and get re-engaged in entrepreneurial activity. There were probably 50-plus people that made $10 million or more, so there was enough of an angel community. There was critical mass around this. But what was missing was something that tied the community together. There was the endless cocktail party circuit of entrepreneurs. Eventually people got bored and stopped going….“The other thing was that one of the hardest things for first-time entrepreneurs is to have an engaged relationship with an experienced entrepreneur. We found we were creating this thing that integrated the whole value chain of entrepreneurs. It really energized the existing entrepreneurial activity.”
Chris Sheehan of CommonAngels then gave his thoughts on the Boston innovation scene. [Disclosure: Chris is on Xconomy’s board.] “In the IT ecosystem in Boston, there are a number of things going on,” Sheehan said. “It’s a wonderful place for universities and colleges. MIT has been the granddaddy in terms of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. But what I’m seeing is a fresh set of energy coming through the other universities—Harvard, Boston University, Babson, Brandeis, the list goes on and on. They’re all embracing startups. There’s a deep bench of entrepreneurs around Boston. On the larger companies, we’ve been lacking there at times, but I’m seeing renewed vigor from companies in terms of your ability to go in and get experienced executives. And Google and Microsoft have finally made a big commitment to Boston.
“There’s been a lot of wealth created in Boston from startups, most of it from the computer, hardware, telecom, networking industry. You’ve seen the rise of angel groups in the last 10 years in Boston. We were the first back in ’98. Today in New England there are 23 or 24 angel groups, representing 800-1,000 angels. The venture community, there are probably 20-25 active firms doing IT investments. But I think we can do more on the seed and early-stage side.
“The final building block is startup resources. Part of the challenge in Boston is, you’ve got this very dispersed ecosystem. You overlay that with a conservative culture. Trying to make connections there and get in and see the right people can be challenging, can be time-consuming.
On the Seattle front, Greg Gottesman of Madrona Venture Group pointed out the importance of anchor companies like Microsoft and Amazon. “I think the most exciting thing going on in Seattle on the entrepreneurial scene is actually Amazon and the wealth it’s creating for a lot of people who’ll be the next generation of angels and entrepreneurs,” he said. He also stressed the importance of wins in establishing an entrepreneurial culture at the University of Washington—his example was Farecast, the travel search startup co-founded by UW prof Oren Etzioni, which Microsoft bought for $115 million last year.
Steve Hall of Vulcan Capital stirred the pot a little by pointing out some of the shortcomings of Seattle. “The first is the question of whether Seattle has enough capital. It’s a very short list of funds. You need a critical mass of capital to drive entrepreneurs’ willingness to quit their jobs and burn the midnight oil to start businesses. While I think it’s good for us VCs to have the market to ourselves, you need a little more activity to jumpstart the system. The good news is there are a lot of Bay Area firms spending a lot of time up here. But I think there’s room for another fund or two, probably in the $100 million range,” Hall said.
Two Companies Awarded Funding
October 30, 2009
The Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority (KEDFA) today awarded two high-tech Kentucky companies, Louisville Bioscience, Inc., and Laboratory and BioDiagnostics, LLC, (LabDx), state funding of up to $250,000 each from the Cabinet for Economic Development’s High-Tech Investment Pool.
LabDx is employing technology to permit transferring lab results directly from the company’s new medical laboratory to customers’ electronic medical records systems. Their laboratory and reporting services will be marketed to physicians and medical facilities to help eliminate errors while improving reporting speed. LabDx is employing technology to permit transferring lab results directly from the company’s new medical laboratory to customers’ electronic medical records systems. Their laboratory and reporting services will be marketed to physicians and medical facilities to help eliminate errors while improving reporting speed.
Louisville Bioscience employs a proprietary lab technique that profiles a patient’s blood plasma proteins to help detect autoimmune and infectious diseases, as well as cancer in their early stages. The new platform technology is also expected to have other applications, including identifying biomarkers and targets for new drugs.
Chrysalis trio promoted
September 22, 2009
Chrysalis Ventures , based in Louisville Kentucky, has promoted three investment professionals: John Willmoth to venture partner; Matt Winn to senior associate and Elizabeth Rounsavall to director of research and analytics. I know Matt & Elizabeth and they are dedicated and work hard to assist their portfolio companies.
Union Springs Pharma receives funding.
August 19, 2009
Union Springs Pharmaceuticals LLC has received more than $5 million in funding from Blue Chip Venture Co. and other venture capital firms, the company said Tuesday.The Series A financing will allow Union Springs to build its sales and marketing organization, as well as expand into the health care and consumer markets, according to a news release. It also will pursue expansion into the European and Canadian markets.
Union Springs, headquartered in Union, Ky., manufactures the Clyns line of infection control products and T-5000 disposable respirators for the EMS, law enforcement, corrections and military markets.
The company is headed by Roger Griggs, who foundedXanodyne Pharmaceuticals, a specialty drug company headquartered in Newport, that also received venture funding from Blue Chip.
Jack Wyant, Blue Chip managing partner, said Union Springs meets the venture capital firm’s criteria, including an executive team that’s “highly ethical, passionate and strategic.”
