Collin County Business: Medtech start-ups get matchmaker

Frisco alliance brings venture capitalists to help medtech startups

Sunday, August 08, 2010

by Sarah Normand Kerner, Collin County Business Press

New medical technology businesses may be getting a boost here, thanks to an alliance between Frisco's North Texas Enterprise Center and 10 venture capital firms that have dollars to invest in the region.

As part of the Venture Alliance Partner Program (VAP), two Texas VC firms and eight from other states will keep occasional office hours at the nonprofit NTEC incubator facility in Frisco, where NTEC staff will screen and play matchmaker between entrepreneurs and VC firms as a way to enhance deal visibility for medtech and clean technology startups. 

"There's a gap between fundable companies that are in our region and the actual capital available to them, so that's the need we're filling," said Hubert Zajicek, senior director at NTEC. "There's a lot of entrepreneurial activity in Texas, but not enough access to venture capital."

While there is lots of VC activity in health science on both the east and west coasts, Zajicek says he and NTEC executive director Larry Calton targeted the VC firms that recognize the potential for innovation and new business in the central and southern parts of the country. 

Texas-Based Sevin Rosen and Santé Ventures are among the 10 VC firms that make up the alliance. Also included are Arboretum Partners (Ann Arbor, Mich.), Ballast Point Ventures (St. Petersburg, Fla.), Chrysalis Ventures (Louisville, Ky.), Heron Capital (Indianapolis), H.I.G. BioVentures (Atlanta), Noro-Mosely Partners (Atlanta), Prolog Ventures (St. Louis), and River Cities Capital Funds (Cincinnati).

The firms will commit to spending from two days a month to two days per quarter maintaining "office hours" at NTEC. Southern Methodist University students from the Cox School of Business will help with due diligence and market research on behalf of companies that apply for VAP consideration. 

Founded in 2002, NTEC operates as a business accelerator - providing a broad spectrum of services and support - to medtech and cleantech startup companies from its Frisco headquarters.

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