Emerging Companies Seeing Surge in Activity

ate last fall, Springboard Enterprises, a national not-for-profit organization that provides access to capital markets for emerging, high growth women-led companies, reported a surge in recent investment and business activity for its portfolio of emerging growth companies. Springboard Enterprises President Amy Millman said that although the first half of 2003 had been slow for deal-making, activity was "definitely heating up" as the year closed.

Springboard portfolio companies raised $150 million in equity capital during 2003, indicating a thaw in early stage venture investing. Millman said that Springboard Enterprises could identify more than $1.76 billion in equity investments and an equal amount of non-equity investments in its 280 portfolio companies.

She pointed to a number of Springboard companies that had recently announced financings. Among them:

• Xenogen Corporation, a biotechnology company, raised $22 million in July 2003 under the leadership of President Pamela Contag. The most recent round of funding brings the total amount of equity raised by Xenogen to more than $100 million.
• Athenix Corporation, which develops bio-industrial products for the agricultural and chemical sectors, raised a $10-million Series B round in October 2003.
• RedTail Solutions, a provider of outsourced electronic trading services and electronic data interchange for middle-market manufacturing and supply companies, closed its Series A financing with $3 million led by Venture Capital Fund New England and 8 Wings Ventures.
• BioMarck Pharmaceuticals, a spinout from North Carolina State University, raised $2.43 million from private angel investors. BioMarck is developing an experimental drug that promises to control the mucus buildup and inflammation that accompany respiratory diseases such as asthma, chronic bronchitis, and cystic fibrosis.
• Polymerix, a specialty pharmaceutical company developing a new class of pharmacologically active biodegradable polymers called PolymerDrugs, raised $3.9 million in a round led by Sherbrooke Capital.
• ZipCar, a Boston company that provides reliable and convenient car-sharing services in urban areas, raised $2 million in the third quarter and was awarded Governor Mitt Romney's Entrepreneurial Spirit Award.

Other Springboard
Company Activities
Not only have Springboard companies been successfully raising equity capital, but they also have been closing key customer contracts, acquiring or being acquired by other companies, securing government grants, and winning prestigious awards and honors.

• iRobot Corporation of Boston landed a multi-million-dollar contract to develop a small unstaffed ground vehicle for the Army's Future Combat Systems program. iRobot also manufactures and markets the highly acclaimed Roomba, a self-propelled vacuum cleaner.
• AlphaVax, a biotechnology company dedicated to the development of an innovative vaccine technology, called the ArV (AlphaVax replicon vector) system, was awarded two National Institutes of Health bio-defense grants totaling $16.6 million to develop new vaccines.
• Biosyn Inc., a Pennsylvania-based leader in the development of products for HIV, was awarded up to $10 million by the International Partnership for Microbicides.
• ActivEye Inc. won a $1.9-million grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technology to develop an automated security surveillance system that would quickly and reliably detect suspicious activities and alert security personnel to potential threats.
• EraGen Biosciences, a Mid-West 2003 presenter, received nearly $1 million from the National Institutes of Health for the continued development of the GeneCode System for bioterrorism agents.

In addition, a number of Springboard New England companies recently received prestigious honors:

• ChipWright earned Frost & Sullivan's 2003 Excellence in Technology Award for its visual signal processing innovation.
• Circles, a leading provider of loyalty management solutions, was chosen as the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce 2003 Small Business of the Year.
• Roving Software was named New England's 9th Fastest Growing Technology Company in the Deloitte & Touche Fast 50 Program.

All of these accomplishments allow high-growth companies to position themselves well for potential exits.

• Beyond Now Technologies, a leader in the home care industry, was acquired by Cerner Corporation (Nasdaq: CERN).
• Nimble Technologies, a spinout from a five-year R&D project at the University of Washington that designed a software solution to unlock information stored in multiple, disparate data sources, was acquired by Actuate Corp. (NASDAQ: ACTU).
• Cadmus Consulting was acquired by Raindrop Geomagic, which is listed among the Deloitte Technology Fast 500.
• Ponte Communications became the second acquisition in 12 months for Voyence, a provider of configuration management solutions for large, heterogeneous networks.

"The level of activity returning to the marketplace is good news for our portfolio companies and for Springboard. We will actively work with our outstanding alumnae to capitalize on the improved economic environment while building a pipeline for the next wave of women-led enterprises," Millman said.