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For Immediate Release
BEN FRANKLIN TECHNOLOGY PARTNERS OF SOUTHEASTERN PENNSYLVANIA APPROVES FUNDING OF NINE DYNAMIC AND EMERGING COMPANIES WITH $2.4 MILLION
April 23, 2007 - PHILADELPHIA, PA - Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania (BFTP/SEP) has approved a total of $2.4 Million in funding for nine early stage technology companies that are prepared to grow their enterprises and the Commonwealth's economy.
"With these investments the Southeast Ben Franklin is succeeding in providing early-stage funding to companies that are moving forward in niche advanced technologies," Department of Community and Economic Development Secretary Dennis Yablonsky said. "It is important to support the work of skilled entrepreneurs as we build an innovation economy."
"These investments continue to demonstrate the diversity of technology opportunities across our region," said RoseAnn B. Rosenthal, BFTP/SEP's President & CEO. "We are proud to provide support to these fine companies and their management teams."
Companies approved for funding:
- InfraScan, Inc.
Philadelphia County
Investment: $250,000
InfraScan, Inc. is a clinical trial stage medical device company that has developed a hand-held diagnostic imaging unit. The first application under development is for the rapid detection of bleeding in the brain. The device is intended as a quick, affordable complement to CT scanning to improve treatment or monitoring of patients with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). InfraScan received $500,000 from BFTP in 2006.
- Hx Technologies, Inc.
Philadelphia County
Investment: $350,000
Hx Technologies Inc. (HxTI) is a technology-based service provider enabling healthcare payers to better manage the cost of redundant diagnostic imaging and improve the quality of patient care. iHistory® is the company's technology-based, managed service that links a region's hospitals, imaging centers, and physicians into a secure, virtual archive of digital imaging results shared across institutional borders. HxTI has moved into a commercialization phase, actively marketing and selling to healthcare payers.
- EyeIC, LLC
Montgomery County
Investment: $200,000
EyeIC is a clinical trial stage company dedicated to applying advanced image and data processing technologies to new applications in Ophthalmology and Optometry. EyeIC received $100,000 from BFTP in 2006 to develop the MatchedFlicker® application. MatchedFlicker® takes any two images of a retina, adjusts and aligns them to compensate for differences in camera angle, lighting, color, and other factors and provides a "flicker" (rapid switching between the images) that renders changes easily and quickly visible as motion.
- Parsortix, Inc.
Philadelphia County
Investment: $150,000
Parsortix, Inc. is an early stage company with a focus on particle sorting. Their initial market is in the area of non-invasive prenatal diagnostics. The company is developing a microfluidic chip for separation of fetal cells from maternal cells in a maternal blood sample. Parsortix has received an initial investment of $300,000 from Angle Technology Ventures.
- Fund Publishing Company
Chester County
Investment: $200,000
Fund Publishing Company (FPC) has the exclusive industry license for Thunderhead Software, for the composition, production and distribution of mutual fund compliance documents. FPC's process is based on the recognition that much of the structure and content of most mutual fund compliance documents is constant from version to version. FPC's compliance documents can be dynamically assembled from pre-approved elements in accordance with established business rules, and finish with a print-ready file. Commercialization of this process is underway with a recently completed pilot. FPC has the ability to generate significant revenue from the printing of these documents through its well-established vendor relationships.
- SkillSurvey, Inc
Chester County
Investment: $250,000
SkillSurvey supplies knowledge based decision support software for automated online reference checking through its patent pending eReference product. eReference is survey-driven, standardized, and competency-based. It helps organizations make better temporary and permanent hiring decisions by delivering more information of higher value. SkillSurvey's objective is to sell its solution direct to large enterprises and staffing firms, via the web to small and medium size businesses, and indirect through various partners channels.
- Voice Star, Inc.
Philadelphia County
Investment: $300,000
Voicestar has developed a revolutionary approach to the performance-based advertising industry. The Voicestar platform allows publishers to sell phone calls to advertisers as sales leads, where the call is the billable event. Voicestar provides telephony, tracking, analytics, recording, billing and distribution technologies. Voicestar's private-labeled platform tracks and measures calls between buyers and advertisers, capturing key return on investment metrics like lead source, length of call, and click to call conversion data. Voicestar's marketplace technology enables publishers to generate more sales calls for their advertisers through both online and offline syndication.
- Freedom Sciences, LLC
Philadelphia County
Investment: $250,000
Freedom Sciences is developing the Automated Transport and Retrieval System (ATRS) and the Freedom Seat. ATRS is a revolutionary transportation mobility solution that integrates robotics and automation technology with mobility products to enable those who use wheelchairs to independently get in and out of vehicles, and remotely operate the wheelchair transport process.
- Light-Pod, Inc.
Montgomery County
Investment: $500,000
Light-Pod, Inc has developed a new method that applies optical configurations and heat dissipation techniques to solid state lighting fixtures by using LED technology. This technology significantly reduces energy consumption, yet delivers equivalent, high quality light output found in traditional incandescent or fluorescent fixtures. In the initial market application, Light-Pod has developed the ability to manufacture fixture components that meet all the stringent Navy requirements for shock, vibration, harmonics, and EMI. Every fixture developed for the Navy will also have a "non-military" version that can be sold directly into the commercial and industrial lighting marketplace.
About Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania
Since 1982, Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania has served as a catalyst for stimulating entrepreneurial potential by developing systems to accelerate the transition of scientific discovery and technology development to commercialization. Part of a statewide network in Pennsylvania, BFTP/SEP provides entrepreneurs and established businesses the capital, knowledge and networks they need to compete in the global marketplace. BFTP/SEP has provided more than $130 million to over 1,600 regional enterprises. BFTP/SEP is a founding partner of the Nanotechnology Institute (NTI) and the Mid-Atlantic Nanotechnology Alliance (MANA®), and is funded by Pennsylvania's Department of Community and Economic Development.
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