News Archive

DreamIt Ventures continues its investment in the health tech space by launching its third DreamIt Health program. We’ve previously covered the 2013 DreamIt Health Philadelphia program and the 2014 DreamIt Health Baltimore program, which is ongoing. Applications for the third class, which will be in Philadelphia from July 18th till November 9th, are currently being accepted until May 16th. If you have the next great startup idea for health, you can apply here….

We had the opportunity to speak with DreamIt Health Managing Partner, Elliot Menschik, MD, PhD, about the program and where he sees opportunities in health tech entrepreneurship.

The IPO wave kept rolling for venture-capital-backed biotech as two life science companies held their first trading day Friday, while another estimated a price range for its public debut and a fourth publicly filed its paperwork.

Reuters Shares of Aquinox Pharmaceuticals Inc. rose 8.6%, while Recro Pharma Inc.‘s stock rose 3.8%.

To celebrate Women’s Day, we hobnobbed with 24 year-old Silicon Valley-based high-tech startup founder Meredith Perry. She’s audacious, persistent, resourceful and a game changer in every sense. Perry’s start-up, uBeam, develops technology using ultrasound to wirelessly charge devices. In 2012, Mike Arrington hailed her demo as the “closest thing to magic” he had seen in a long time. Since, Silicon Valley powerhouses such as Marissa Mayer, Peter Theil, and Andressen Horowitz have invested in uBeam.

Perry designed the early prototypes of uBeam’s technology without any engineering degree, relying on in-depth Internet research and “begging professors to teach her extra concepts after class.” When she first brought her idea to experts and engineers she was met with point-blank responses along the lines of ‘you are trying to do the impossible; it will never work.’

A number of devices now exist that turn smartphones into medical monitors, but they tend to focus on specific vital signs and you’d have to carry a number of separate components to measure a variety of parameters. A new iPhone case called Wello from Azoi Inc. is planned to be released later this year combines a one lead ECG, thermometer, pulse oximeter, and supposedly even a cuffless blood pressure sensor in one device. It will also come with an optional spirometer for measuring airway flows and volumes.

Though other components are available in existing devices, cuffless blood pressure measurement is not trivial and has never been demonstrated to be as accurate as traditional cuffed BP monitors. And since FDA clearance is still required to release the Wello in the U.S., it will be interesting to see just how accurate it really is. Coincidentally, the Scanadu Scout, a device with similar claims, including cuffless blood pressure monitoring, is set to be shipped this month to all those who invested in it through an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign.

Debt isn’t always a dirty word in the world of startups.

Yesterday I heard John Hoesley from Silicon Valley Bank give a brief presentation on venture debt as a funding mechanism for startups at a capital connections event hosted by BioOhio. He mentioned that SVB has seen an uptick in its venture debt business over the last few years as venture capital dollars have become more scarce and companies have turned to alternative sources of funding.

Alejandro Zaffaroni, a prolific biotechnology entrepreneur and Silicon Valley legend who played a significant role in the development of the birth control pill, the nicotine patch, the DNA chip and corticosteroids, died on Saturday at his home in Atherton, Calif. He was 91.

The cause was complications of dementia, Ana Leech, his longtime assistant, said.

REGISTRATION DEADLINE: MARCH 14

The 8th Annual Entrepreneurial University Startups Conference is organized annually by the National Council of Entrepreneurial Tech Transfer (NCET2.org). The University Startups Conference is a unique conference series dedicated exclusively to the best practices for creating and funding globally-competitive, venture-backable university startups.

We bring together universities creating startups with VCs, angel investors, SBIR program managers and Fortune 500 technology scouts funding them. The conference also includes NSF, NIH, NIST, DOD, DOE, DHS and other government agencies working on improving the Innovation Economy by increasing the quality and quantity of startups coming out of universities.

Fierce Biotech today published the top 15 sites in the US for biotech venture capital in 2013.  This according to figures from the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) as compiled by Thomas Reuters.  The findings are not terribly surprising in terms of the rankings — except it might be a mild surprise that San Francisco outspent Boston/Cambridge on the VC front last year.  Otherwise, the rankings look to make sense.  Here is the summary below in terms of place, dollars and numbers of deals.  The total dollars for the US was $4.5 B.

Silver Spring-based United Therapeutics (NASDAQ: UTHR) finished off 2013 with a strong showing, collecting revenues of over $1.1 billion for the first time in its corporate history as well posting a net profit for the full-year 2013 and upbeat 2014 outlook.

Hidden beneath all the earnings news is a very important line segment on the balance sheet called “Cash and Cash Equivalents”. These are assets that have high liquidity and can be easily converted to cash or are cash themselves; that being said United Therapeutics has amassed nearly $1.14 billion worth of it. The amount is over $350 million more than the company held at the end of 2012.

Startup incubator DreamIt Ventures Austin is kicking off a new microfund this week that will benefit the companies involved with its second accelerator program.

The microfund, which will run through a partnership with AngelList, allows accredited investors to crowdfund money for startups. Everyone who participates in DreamIt Austin’s microfund will need to make a $2,500 minimum investment that will fund all nine companies within DreamIt’s Austin program — that means you can’t just pick and chose to fund only the companies you like.