News Archive

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.

The rumors were true – kind of: The Founders Fund has been out raising a massive amount of cash for a fifth fund, but it’s not $750 million as originally thought. It’s $1 billion, the fund said today.

Most known for backing Facebook, Spotify and Elon Musk’s SpaceX, FF is a “stage agnostic” fund that focuses on aerospace, artificial intelligence, advanced computing, energy, health and consumer Internet.

J. Craig Venter is the latest wealthy entrepreneur to think he can cheat aging and death. And he hopes to do so by resorting to his first love: sequencing genomes.

On Tuesday, Dr. Venter announced that he was starting a new company, Human Longevity, which will focus on figuring out how people can live longer and healthier lives.

The University of Maryland just announced a new relationship with Lockheed Martin where the two will partner to develop an integrated quantum computing platform. The duo signed a memorandum of understanding Wednesday putting into effect the establishment of the Quantum Engineering Center at the UMD.

“Classical computing can only take us so far,” Dr. Ray O. Johnson, Lockheed Martin senior vice president and chief technology officer, said in an interview with the university. “In the future, critical systems will become so complex that problems will take too long or become too expensive to solve using even our most powerful supercomputers. We believe the next computational revolution will stem from applied quantum science—a discipline that connects physics, information science, and engineering.”

angelMD, a crowdfunding platform that connects physicians and leading medical startups, has stated the number of medical startups with live profiles on the site  now exceeds 100. Startups listed on the site must be a medical product or product enabled service, must be a legal entity and be ready to share their story. angelMD selects investment candidates from those listed on the site seeking capital.  Based in both San Francisco and Seattle, Washington, angelMD has incorporated the participation of leading physicians from all over the United States to source and evaluate opportunities.

In his $3.9 trillion fiscal year 2015 budget proposal released Tuesday, President Obama asked for $1.8 billion to support health information technology incentive payments — the same amount he requested last year. Actual spending for this category came to $1.07 billion in 2013.

The budget also included $77.1 billion in discretionary funding to support HHS’s mission, $800 million below the 2014-enacted level.

J. Craig Venter, the human genome pioneer, today unveiled a new San Diego-based venture with an ambitious goal of providing whole genome sequencing and cell-therapy-based diagnostic services for patients.

Venter said he co-founded the company, Human Longevity Inc., or HLI, with Robert Hariri, who oversaw Celgene Cellular Therapeutics and Peter Diamandis of the X Prize Foundation. The company already has raised $70 million in Series A venture financing that includes a Malaysian investment fund that also is the lead investor of another Venter venture, Synthetic Genomics, San Diego-based Illumina (NASDAQ: ILMN), and other individual investors.

A new teacher “pipeline” at the University of Maryland, College Park, is expected to help with difficult-to-fill teacher positions in Prince George’s County.

“It absolutely bolsters our available pool of STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] teachers. And because we’re partners with the university, it gives us ready access to those students coming through the program,” Debra Sullivan, recruitment and retention officer in Prince George’s County Public Schools Department of Human Resources, said of Terrapin Teachers, a new program designed to encourage more undergraduate students in STEM fields to go into teaching.

If you love the company you work for…

Then tell us! Share with the Frederick business community all the great things your company offers its employees. Great health insurance? Company picnics? Job training? Philanthropic efforts? Service awards? No detail is too small. Take home the coveted Best Places to Work award and window cling. Let everyone know just how great your company is. 

New this year: All winners and the event will be covered in Frederick Magazine.

Fundrise, a crowdfunding start-up that finances commercial real estate projects for investors, will be debuting its latest offering on Wednesday morning on its site: a vacant commercial building on 1539 7th Street NW, in Washington, DC that the developer hopes to turn into a boutique retail site. The project is $2 million and $350,000 will be available to the general public.

This will be Fundrise’s 18th project and while in many respects it is similar to the ones that came before it, there is something new. Maryland residents can invest in the project–in as little as $100 increments—for the first time. Prior to this, these projects were only open to DC and Virginia residents.