Rich Keller, Editor, Ag Professional | October 10, 2013
The European Commission’s impending two-year ban on the use of neonicotinoid pesticides could have a major positive financial impact on some companies developing alternatives to these pesticides, claims Lux Research. The ban is stimulating interest in biopesticides as an alternative approach to pest control for crops, and the research company contends one company, Vestaron, is positioned for big growth. “With a 25 percent share of the $16 billion global insecticide market, neonicotinoids will leave a gaping hole in their wake. Vestaron is well-positioned to fill the gap, and its spider venom peptides are set for U.S. EPA approval by year’s end,” Lux Research reported. Scouting for industry innovators to give companies heads up on new growth areas and novel markets is part of what Lux Research does. The researchers “combed through the 415 companies they profiled in the third quarter of 2013 to select 10 firms whose performance points to a near-term growth opportunity.” Vestaron was the agricultural industry company listed and was third in the top 10. There has been little public news about Vestaron in the U.S., but we should be hearing more soon.
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"Both Eric and Mike share our vision for explosive growth in low-power semiconductor chips that will drive a diverse spectrum of connected devices. Eric and Mike are welcome additions to our management team and I look forward to working with each of them."
Austin, TX (PRWEB) October 16, 2013 Ambiq Micro, a leader in ultra-low power integrated circuits, today announced the appointment of Eric Smith as Vice President of Operations and Mike Salas as Vice President of Marketing. The addition of these two highly experienced executives brings a wealth of semiconductor industry expertise to this high growth semiconductor startup. Both executives have joined the company effective immediately and they will report to Chief Executive Officer and President Mark Foley. “Both Eric and Mike share our vision for explosive growth in low-power semiconductor chips that will drive a diverse spectrum of connected devices. Eric and Mike are welcome additions to our management team and I look forward to working with each of them,” said Mark Foley. Immediately prior to joining Ambiq Micro, Eric was Vice President of Operations at Javelin Semiconductor, now acquired by Avago Technologies and Mike was the Vice President and General Manager of the Microcontroller Division at Silicon Labs. About Ambiq Micro Ambiq Micro, a fabless semiconductor company located in Austin, Texas, develops products that redefine the meaning of ultra-low power integrated circuits. The company’s proprietary SPOT™ design platform dramatically reduces energy consumed in standard CMOS chip designs freeing product designers to expand the features and functions incorporated in their products while exceeding battery life requirements. Ambiq Micro’s products change the design and use of energy critical products used in consumer, industrial, automotive and medical applications. Go to http://www.ambiqmicro.com for additional information about the company, technology and its products. Chicago’s Database Technology Company, TempoDB, Secures $3.2 Million Series A Investment for DBaaS10/9/2013 CHICAGO, Oct. 9, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — TempoDB (http://tempo-db.com), the time series database service for sensors and measurement data, announced it has received $3.2 million in Series A funding from Hyde Park Venture Partners, Chicago Ventures, Divergent Ventures and angel investors including Hyde Park Angels. Led by Hyde Park Venture Partners, this largelyChicago-based institutional investment will enable TempoDB to triple team size by hiring technical sales staff and software engineers to continue building the leading time series database service while increasing global reach.
(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20131009/CG94469LOGO) Founded in late 2011, TempoDB stores billions of measurement data points from millions of Internet-connected sensors, serving customers in industries as diverse as energy, manufacturing, infrastructure, healthcare, and the emerging “Internet of Things.” Built for software developers, TempoDB’s database is infrastructure-as-a-service and makes time series data storage and analysis simple and powerful. According to TempoDB CEO, Andrew Cronk, with this $3.2 million influx of capital the company will hire additional software engineers to further scale storage, analysis and monitoring capability. Additionally, TempoDB will hire a team of technical sales staff to increase global reach and service enterprise-level customers. Cronk says, “We started TempoDB to solve the deep technical challenges we faced as developers trying to make sense of data from sensors and connected devices. We’ve learned two things: 1. The demand is huge: companies in nearly every industry are looking to transform their business with sensor data. 2. The technical challenges we’re tackling are pushing the boundaries of streaming analytics and distributed computing. It’s a great time to be building our business in this market, and we’re looking forward to growing our team here in Chicago.” TempoDB will add four team members this year, and eight additional in 2014 to service a growing customer base. Customers include Fluke, NinjaBlocks, WattVision, sMeasure and many others. TempoDB has raised a total of $4.2 million, including this new Series A raise of $3.2 million. About TempoDB TempoDB is the fast, scalable time series database service, purpose-built to store and analyze massive streams of measurement data from billions of sensors and connected devices. It is the only infrastructure-as-a-service time series database, and is being leveraged by enterprise and small business alike. Founded by Andrew Cronk, Justin DeLay and Mike Yagley in Chicago, TempoDB’s mission is to make sense of the measured world. TempoDB was named a 2013 Smart Grid News Company to Watch, and earned Techie.com’s Editor’s Choice award for emerging technology. TempoDB is a Techstars Cloud graduate. http://tempo-db.com About Hyde Park Venture Partners Hyde Park Venture Partners (HPVP) is an early stage venture capital fund investing in seed and Series A software companies in the Midwest. HPVP invests in technology-enabled business, consumer service and healthcare IT startups with incredible founding teams raising their first or second round of institutional capital. About Chicago Ventures Chicago Ventures invests in well-managed seed-stage technology companies in Chicago and the Greater Midwest that have demonstrated a value proposition in a given market for their product or services. The fund looks to make initial investments ranging from $250,000 to $1 million in each company. About Divergent Ventures Divergent Ventures is an early stage venture capital investment firm headquartered in Seattle Washington and investing nationwide. The Managing Directors are Kevin Ober, Rob Shurtleff, and Todd Warren are highly experienced and successful early-stage investors. The firm invests in early-stage companies, with an emphasis on big data, storage, virtualization/cloud and next generation applications. SOURCE TempoDB RELATED LINKS http://tempo-db.com Hypertension affects an estimated 1 billion people worldwide, and an estimated 65 million adults in the United States(1,2). It is a major risk factor for heart disease, stroke, congestive heart failure, metabolic syndrome, obstructive sleep apnea and kidney disease. One out of every six adult deaths is attributable to hypertension, and the economic burden in the US exceeds $76.6 Billion. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that worldwide, more than 17 million deaths each year are attributable to cardiovascular disease, with hypertension being a substantial contributor to these deaths(3).
A significant subset of the treated patients are medication-resistant or “refractory” and do not achieve target blood pressure levels, despite taking daily doses of three or more medications(4,5,6). In the US, approximately 6 million individuals suffer from refractory hypertension(4). Renal Denervation has been demonstrated to reduce blood pressure in patients who are not effectively treated by medical therapy. The sympathetic nerves that run along the renal artery play an essential role in controlling blood pressure but, when overactive, contribute to hypertension. De-activating these nerves modulates the signaling process, and helps to reduce blood pressure. Unlike other approaches to renal denervation that depend upon transmural delivery of destructive energy, Ablative Solutions has developed a unique device that delivers treatment directly to the nerves that encircle the renal artery, without damaging the renal artery walls – PeriVascular Renal Denervation (PVRD™). Ablative Solutions, Inc., was founded in 2011 by Tim Fischell, MD, FACC, and David Fischell, PhD, to address this significant unmet medical need. Ablative Solutions’ technology involves endovascular catheters to provide an efficacious, durable, cost-effective and safe alternative to surgical renal denervation for the treatment of hypertension and other diseases caused by an overactive sympathetic nervous system. GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., Sept. 30, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — Tetra Discovery Partners, a leader in the design of new therapeutics for major neurological conditions based on PDE4 modulation in the brain, today announced it has closed a $1,041,000 seed investment led by Grand Angels, a Grand Rapids, Mich.-based investment group.
The investment in Tetra includes funding from Grand Angels and the Biosciences Research & Commercialization Center (BRCC), which invests in promising, Michigan-based life sciences ventures, and the Michigan PreSeed Capital Fund. It also includes funding from the Michigan Emerging Technology Fund as a match to the recent $3 million Phase II SBIR award Tetra received from the National Institute of Mental Health. The investment will support Tetra’s efforts to develop an innovative drug to treat cognitive impairment caused by Alzheimer’s disease, and a second drug to treat depression and restore cognitive function in patients who have suffered traumatic brain injury (TBI). “We are pleased that Grand Angels led the seed round for Tetra, and we look forward to the increased momentum this investment provides,” said Mark Gurney, Ph.D., Tetra’s founder and CEO. “Our partnership will not only help to fund our key research and commercialization objectives, but the strategic connections and counsel that Grand Angels provides will accelerate Tetra’s work on behalf of the millions of people suffering the devastating effects of Alzheimer’s disease, depression and traumatic brain injury, for which there are no effective treatments.” “Grand Angels is very pleased to have led this investment in one of Michigan’s most innovative businesses,” said Jody Vanderwel, Grand Angels President. “Mark and the Tetra team are changing the face of Alzheimer’s research and working on some truly industry-changing breakthroughs right here in Grand Rapids. “As of July 2013, we have invested nearly $12.5 million in 26 entrepreneurial companies. This latest opportunity with Tetra is a perfect example of how Grand Angels is able to make an important and potentially transformative impact through the funding and strategic support that we provide.” Tetra’s research focuses on designing drugs that inhibit phosphodiesterase 4 (PDE4), a key enzyme in the brain that controls the biochemical process of memory. The company works closely with the NIH Blueprint Neurotherapeutics Network, a $50 million program across 15 NIH Institutes and Centers that support drug discovery research collaborations with early stage biotechnology companies and academics to develop effective therapeutics for nervous system disorders. The Blueprint Neurotherapeutics team of skilled industry drug discovery and development consultants has been pivotal in helping Tetra to develop a drug to treat Alzheimer’s disease. About Tetra Discovery Partners Based in Grand Rapids, Mich., Tetra Discovery Partners (http://www.tetradiscovery.com) uses structure-guided drug design to discover mechanistically novel, allosteric inhibitors of phosphodiesterase 4 (PDE4). The Company’s research focuses on developing new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), depression and traumatic brain injury (TBI). In addition to its NIH Blueprint Neurotherapeutics Network cooperative research agreement, the Company has been the recipient of both NIH/NIMH Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Michigan Emerging Technologies Fund awards. The Company’s founder, Dr. Mark Gurney, was recently named one of two leading inventors globally in the creation of Alzheimer’s disease treatments by Griffith Hack, a leading Australia-based intellectual property law firm, following the analysis of nearly 50,000 patents for the treatment of Alzheimer’s. About Grand Angels Grand Angels is committed to using its financial, intellectual, and networking capital to foster the success of emerging companies and to enhance the economic development of West Michigan. Grand Angels makes investments that have a positive effect on our region through business growth, job creation, and the attraction and retention of local talent. In addition to investing in primarily early stage companies, Grand Angels continues to be very active in its effort to create a climate for the success of entrepreneurs in West Michigan. Many of its members have served on panels, judged pitch competitions, and mentored entrepreneurs through organizations including the Accelerate Michigan competition, Hope Entrepreneurship Initiative, and Grand Valley State University Seidman College of Business Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation. www.grandangels.org. SOURCE Tetra Discovery Partners RELATED LINKS http://www.tetradiscovery.com |
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