PROVIDENCE – The state-backed Slater Technology Fund is “optimistic” about fiscal 2008, “after significant success in the fiscal year ending June 30,” the state-backed venture capital fund said today. Highlights of the annual report included the fund’s highest-ever level of capital recovery and a near-record level of funding commitments.
“We are truly excited about the prospects for the coming year,” Richard G. Horan, senior managing director of the Slater Technology Fund, said in a statement.
During the year ended June 30, Slater approved or completed $3.1 million in funding of 11 technology-based ventures, a total second only to the previous fiscal year’s record $3.5 million. Transactions totaling $2.25 million were completed during fiscal 2007, while $850,000 in further committments were approved pending various closing conditions.
The fund noted that its investments in the past year included several commitments of $250,000 to $500,000, “notably larger … than in previous years.” Slater described the change as part of a new strategy of devoting larger commitments to “a more limited number of investee companies with a view toward increasing the probabilities of success in attracting significant follow-on funding over the near-term and generating more significant numbers of high-value, high-wage jobs over the intermediate to longer-term.”
The fund’s eventual goal is to achieve sufficient returns on investment that it will become self-sustaining. So far, however, it continues to rely on state financing.
“The sustained level of committment shown by … the Carcieri administration, as well as the General Assembly,” has been “particularly gratifying,” Horan said. That commitment was renewed at the end of the fiscal year, in the amount of $3.0 million – the same amount the fund has received in each year of the past 10 years.
Meanwhile, Slater’s return on previous investments in fiscal 2007 came to $930,000, a new record and more than twice the previous year’s total of $420,448.
“We are seeing increasing evidence of the return on such investment in the contributions being made to the growth of the innovation economy here in Rhode Island,” Horan said. “We’re quite confident that the strategy will continue paying significant dividends in the years ahead.”
In addition, “Slater also saw many of its [existing] portfolio companies make significant progress during the year,” the fund said. Details of their achievements are available at www.slaterfund.com.
Companies receiving initial or follow-up commitments from the fund in the past fiscal year included:
• Andera Software Inc. of Providence ($150,000) a developer of Web-based services for banks and credit unions founded by Brown University graduates.
• Bionica Corp. of Providence ($500,000), a spinoff of industrial design firm Design Lab that is developing a new personal communications system for the hearing-impaired.
• Concordia Fibers LLC of Coventry ($250,000), a textile maker now producing specialty fibers and materials for biomedical and other uses.
• Creative Circle Advertising Solutions Inc. of Providence ($200,000), founded at the Center for Design & Business incubator, the creator of a new Web-based classified advertising system for print publications (including Providence Business News) and radio stations.
• Genome Corp. of Providence ($250,000), a genomics company working to develop an affordable system of DNA sequencing.
• Innovention Technologies Inc. of Middletown ($500,000), a startup founded in collaboration with researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh that is designing surgical robots for cardiac and other conditions.
• Location Inc. ($250,000), a spinoff of local university research that specializes in Web-based neighborhood search and information.
• ProThera Biologics LLC ($100,000), a spinoff of research at Lifespan’s Rhode Island Hospital that is developing diagnostic and therapeutic products for the treatment of severe infections and other life-threatening conditions.
• Public Display Inc. ($150,000), a developer of Web-based “groupware” to organize the whole family, founded by a local team of serial entrepreneurs.
• Storage Venture ($250,000), a spinoff of technology developed at the University of Rhode Island that is focusing on development of products and technologies for the data-protection market.
• Tizra Inc. of Providence ($500,000), a developer of online publishing and delivery systems for data from Portable Document Format files (PDFs).
The Slater Technology Fund, established in 1997 by then-Gov. Lincoln Almond and the R.I. General Assembly, provides seed capital to technology-based businesses in Rhode Island. Additional information is available at www.slaterfund.com.
