We’ve heard it over and over again, like a broken record: “lost for the season,” “finished for the season,” “will miss the rest of the season.” Sound familiar? Our leading UConn basketball players have literally, at times, fallen like flies while racing around the court or twisting to make a critical pass or block. Since 2008, in fact, we’ve seen several Lady Huskies – including Caroline Doty, Kalana Greene and Mel Thomas – diagnosed with torn anterior cruciate ligaments (ACLs) and sidelined for the season.

Once the diagnosis is made, the solution requires reconstructive surgery, involving a second surgery to harvest large pieces of tissue from the kneecap or hamstring, followed by physical therapy and months of strengthening and conditioning. The damage caused by the harvesting surgery never completely reheals, and the injury can take a player a full season to regain the level of performance he or she had before the injury – and that’s after the lost season when the injury occurred. Clearly, these injuries are debilitating and are a source of frustration, not only for the players but also for the team and its fans.

But here’s the good news. Soft Tissue Regeneration (STR) of Stamford, Connecticut, is advancing breakthrough technology that promises to eliminate the harvesting surgery, cut the recovery period for patients with ACL injuries down and return them to practice in a much shorter time! How will STR do this? The company is developing a unique solution that utilizes an implanted synthetic braided scaffold to facilitate the regeneration of ligament tissue.

The company has been making great strides in demonstrating its technology and was recently given a vote of confidence with a new investment from Connecticut Innovations. We announced this investment last week. Click here to review our press release.

With assistance from this technology, the Lady Huskies can turn outstanding seasons into phenomenal seasons – with injured players recovering more quickly and returning to the game stronger than ever.

Russ Tweeddale
Managing Director, Investments

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Posted under From the Deal Team

The next wave of entrepreneurs got a quick primer on Tuesday, April 20, at the Hartford Club. The Connecticut Venture Group (CVG) held an informative workshop titled “Preparing for Investors”, which was designed to help attendees learn how to make their business concepts attractive to prospective investors or strategic partners. It was CVG’s prelude to Crossroads, a Northeast-region venture fair coming up on May 5 and 6 in New Haven.

The crowd filled the room and extra tables were wheeled in as a series of speakers gave informative talks on topics ranging from sources of capital to negotiating with investors. The speakers were a Who’s Who of the Connecticut venture ecosystem, including accountants, attorneys, bankers and, of course, investors. Entrepreneurs in attendance were drawn from around the Northeast; one table alone was made up of attendees from Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York and Massachusetts. Additionally, UConn, Yale and the University of Hartford all had faculty, student entrepreneurs or licensing professionals in attendance.

The workshop provided a springboard for many looking to raise capital or assist early-stage ventures. During an instructional session on elevator pitches at the end of the event, many attendees put their best foot forward and practiced before the crowd – attempting a “dry run” before meeting with investors at Crossroads.
 
It was an interesting day of learning and networking, focusing Connecticut’s venture community on the objectives of next month’s Crossroads Venture Fair. Crossroads, now in its 17th year, will feature presentations by select later-stage tech, IT, and life science companies from the Northeast. Always an informative and enjoyable event, Crossroads promises to be a great venue for making connections. I look forward to seeing you in New Haven on May 5 and 6.
 
Dan Wagner
Senior Investment Associate

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Posted under From the Deal Team

Meet Steve Roberts. He’s a mover and shaker in the mobile industry, this month profiled in PYMNTS.com, an online media channel for the industry. He’s CEO of Norwalk-based ShopText Inc., a CI portfolio company that is a leader in mobile promotion response, counting Procter & Gamble, Dillard’s and US Bank among its customers.

Hear directly from him through the YouTube video interview and brief profile posted on PYMNTS.com. He discusses how his company is transforming the world of mobile promotions, commerce and payments – through texting. We think you’ll be interested – here’s the link.

Pauline Murphy
Managing Director, Investments

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Posted under From the Deal Team

Nature has a funny way of providing a helping hand when it comes to healing. We may not all realize it, but the vast world of nature offers a plethora of healing agents. We just need to unearth them, so to speak!

Remarkably, sixty to seventy percent of the drugs in use in the United States today are natural products or are derived from or based on natural products. Some have even been derived from microbes in the soil. However, existing technology has screened only a small fraction of microbes in the soil and in other ecological niches. A pity, indeed.

That may soon change, however, if Metagenomix Inc., a young company spun out of Yale, is able to successfully demonstrate its new high-throughput methods to mine drug-like compounds from microbes in the soil – potentially a treasure trove for new drugs.

CI is helping this company pursue its technology development goals by providing investment capital. We encourage you to read more about the company, and our recent investment, in our Metagenomix press release.

Russ Tweeddale
Managing Director, Investments

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Posted under From the Deal Team

The neurodegenerative disorder, loosely know as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), is becoming more prevalent in the aging population worldwide. In fact, the statistical progression of AD, as the average life expectancy of the U.S. population increases beyond 80 years old, shows that this disease may well be the next worldwide health care epidemic. Let’s look at a few of the numbers!

By most statistical estimates, currently approximately 10-15% of people age 70 have some form of AD. By age 85, almost 50% of the population has symptoms of AD. And, according to United Nations estimates, the average life expectancy of humans in the U.S. is expected to climb past age 85 by the year 2050, and over age 75 worldwide. Based on these increased life expectancies, we can calculate that there will be a worldwide population of approximately 200 million people over age 85 within 40 years. Half of them may have AD—or over 100 million people worldwide potentially with some form of AD in 2050! This is a very big problem.

A few factors may make this problem even more daunting. Once the average life expectancy moves past age 85, a much higher percentage of the population may have AD (say 60-70%). And, with medical advances, that population may live longer with the disease. The average AD patient currently lives approximately four to six years from first diagnosis, but in the future that patient’s life expectancy will probably increase toward 10 years and beyond. So, the worldwide cost of care for AD patients will undoubtedly skyrocket!

In the United States alone, the Alzheimer’s Association estimates that, without better ways to prevent AD in the future, the number of people with the disease could rise from 5 million currently to over 15 million by 2050. And, as we know a tripling in AD patients will severely strain our health care system and the caregivers within family units.

Current treatments for AD attempt to treat symptoms and to date none have proven to be effective. Many pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies have begun programs whose goal is to prevent neurodegeneration. Developing therapeutics to prevent AD appears to have more immediate promise than attempting to develop drugs to restore cognitive function at the same time that further deterioration continues to take place. However, developing preventive measures is not without challenge. Current research concludes that the formation of “plaques” ultimately responsible for decreased function in the brain begins roughly 10-20 years before AD symptoms begin to appear. Therefore, therapeutic approaches attempting to slow or eliminate the onset of AD should ideally be given 10-20 years ahead of symptoms—at least for those with genetic predisposition toward AD, or other non-genetic risk factors, such as severe head injuries, cerebrovascular disease, diabetes or obesity.

So, where does this leave us? We have a growing health care problem (AD) that we need to address as soon as possible. The problem is exacerbated by continued advances in medical research and improving health care conditions in lesser-developed nations, resulting in a growing elderly population worldwide. Investments in research to develop preventive therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases are needed now—therapeutics take time to develop (often 10 years or more), and when coupled with the lead time on prevention necessary to keep from developing AD (up to 20 years), it is critical that we begin to prevent this growing epidemic before it steals quality of life from many of our senior citizens and bankrupts our health care system.

David Wurzer
Managing Director, Investments

David Wurzer is a managing director at Connecticut Innovations. Dave was recently involved in making a seed investment in Axerion Therapeutics Inc., a private Connecticut-based biotechnology company focused on developing innovative therapeutics for neurological diseases and injuries with significant unmet medical need, including Alzheimer’s disease. Dave serves as Connecticut Innovations’ representative on the Axerion Board of Directors.

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Posted under From the Deal Team

Mun Y. Choi, Ph.D.
Dean, University of Connecticut School of Engineering

Engineers are known for their expertise in problem solving. They see a technical challenge and immediately formulate a mental checklist, breaking down the problem into manageable partitions. 

Engineers often apply their skills toward solving discrete problems within the context of a larger system. They may develop manufacturing processes that increase efficiency and yield, new coatings for biocompatible materials, and clean energy conversion, to name a few examples.

Solving larger problems faced by specific groups – say, individuals with physical limitations, senior citizens, or even larger groups such as impoverished citizens in developing countries who lack access to clean water and electricity – is really just a larger-scale engineering problem. 

We live in a border-spanning, global marketplace with enormous commercial opportunities and competition. But we are also citizens of a vast, interconnected and interdependent global society. As engineers, we can help to solve some of the pressing problems facing humanity’s shared future. 

In recent months, the UConn School of Engineering has hosted two engineers who are leading important efforts in social entrepreneurship: Bernard Amadei, founder of Engineers Without Borders – USA, and alumnus Scott Case, social entrepreneur and CEO of Malaria No More. Their presentations drew large numbers of students and faculty who view global problems as important social issues and are committed to solving them. 

As educators, it’s our job to help them fulfill their promise as engineering practitioners and thoughtful stewards. Thanks to iPhones, Facebook, Twitter and other social media, students of today can view civil rights demonstrations on their cell phones or read Twitter texts from earthquake-ravaged survivors. They are engaged and responsive.

At UConn, students are involved in Engineers Without Borders working to improve life in Thailand and Nicaragua; students and faculty are working in drought-ravaged Ethiopia to gauge rainfall and alleviate thirst; and teams in Thailand and Japan are learning how smart structures can withstand natural hazards…

In short, this new generation of engineers is applying its engineering know-how to improve lives across the globe. This trend fills me with pride and hope that together – educators, practitioners and idealistic students – can engineer an enduring legacy.

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Posted under Tech Community / VC World

Any entrepreneurs who are soon to make a presentation before VCs should review the succinct suggestions contained in this recent ReadWriteWeb blog post, which summarizes advice from six venture capitalists. It is a nice snapshot of “dos and don’ts,” covering what to emphasize in the presentation, how to prepare – and prepare for – the presentation, how to grab the attention of VCs and what not to discuss.

The blog post is part of the ReadWriteStart channel, which is sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark. (Note: Last July, CI became a Network Partner of BizSpark, an initiative that puts promising technology startup companies on an even faster track to success.)

Peter Longo
President & Executive Director

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Posted under Message from the President

Del Merenda
President & CEO, i-MARK, Inc.

Whether driven through intentionally or unwittingly, the consequences are often fatal. Those making a clean run through the intersection likely experience a tinge of heart failure once realizing they are still in one piece after a brush with almost certain disaster.
 
Here’s a different sort of stop sign for you: Stop ignoring the Internet business channel!  Businesses that continue to ‘run’ this stop sign are flirting with business disruption consequences of a similar deadly nature. Either they are too busy to look up to see it heading right for them or – they see it coming alright, but they just don’t believe it will have a consequential impact on them. What these businesses don’t see or believe is the major DNA change clearly at work and becoming entrenched within the behaviors of most all of today’s consumer and business buyers. When ready to buy, this new or reconditioned breed first goes for a discovery jaunt on the Internet. Once finding a likely supplier, they expect the supplier’s website to help guide them to find, evaluate and buy what they want or need. One-stop, self-service ‘find it and buy it’, then get back to work or play.

Progressive business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) marketers are quickly learning that interactive marketing must be the prime means of mining for new customers. If you think that consumer buying behaviors are morphing to the Internet at warp speed, B2B buyers are moving there at an even faster clip with 93.2% of them now exclusively using the Internet to find qualified vendors and their products¹.
 
So, what to do? How about deciding what to no longer do?

• Don’t ignore the people working for you who are pleading for a more effective, working website that will operate in support of their efforts or work independently to better support your customers and help you acquire new ones.
• Don’t miss the opportunity to off-load your customer support staff of repetitive and time consuming tasks that an interactive, working website can do far better, longer (24/7) and more consistently. Hint: for companies falling into the classic 80/20 rule; let a working, self-service website automatically serve those 80% of your customers who generate only 20% of your revenues. They will likely be better served and happier, while your support staff can focus on hooking bigger fish.
• Stop focusing on legacy programs to develop new business and redirect funding to search-engine optimization (SEO), whether you understand how it works or not. By the way, few truly understand all of its complex rules and algorithm intricacies, including me. However, done well, SEO can literally replace expensive and lightly-attended trade shows, ineffective direct mail, magazine advertising, and eMarketplace subscriptions. SEO can deliver more qualified buyers to your salesforce than all those so-called trusted and very expensive legacy marketing programs, combined.

A hard working, self-service website with guided product/service search-and-discovery or step-by-step, guided ‘build-to-order’, combined with an effective SEO program will put you well ahead of the pack in the race for market share growth and for a fraction of what you pay for those (now) less-effective traditional marketing and customer service programs of the past. Ignore the intersection of interactive marketing and the web-empowered marketplace at your own risk. This is one stop sign you can no longer risk running.
 
¹Marketing Today Newsletter, February, 2010, Published by Peter DeLegge Consulting

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Posted under Portfolio company guest article