AccuStrata, Inc.; Applied Plasma Science, LLC; Branchpoint Technologies, LLC; Combined Technology Solutions, LLC; Creatv Microtech, Inc.; EncephRX, Inc.; Euveda Biosciences, Inc.; Fuzbien Technology Institute, Inc.; GM Biosciences, Inc.; OmniSpeech, LLC; Opticul Diagnostics, Inc.; SemaConnect, Inc.; TreeMiner, Inc.; Video Semantics, LLC and VisiSonics Corporation Receive Funding to Transfer Technologies from Laboratories to Marketplace
COLUMBIA, Md. (July 19, 2011) – The Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO) announced today that 15 Maryland technology companies have received $1,125,000 total in funding. AccuStrata, Inc.; Applied Plasma Science, LLC; Branchpoint Technologies, LLC; Combined Technology Solutions, LLC; Creatv Microtech, Inc.; EncephRX, Inc.; Euveda Biosciences, Inc.; Fuzbien Technology Institute, Inc.; GM Biosciences, Inc.; OmniSpeech, LLC; Opticul Diagnostics, Inc.; SemaConnect, Inc.; TreeMiner, Inc.; Video Semantics, LLC and VisiSonics Corporation each received $75,000 from TEDCO’s Maryland Technology Transfer and Commercialization Fund (MTTCF). This program is designed to foster greater collaboration between businesses, Maryland universities and federal laboratories in order to bring technology into the marketplace.
“TEDCO is pleased to provide seed funding to these fifteen promising companies,” said Rob Rosenbaum, president and executive director of TEDCO. “Each of these companies has tremendous potential to leverage these funds in hopes of attracting support from future investors, which is vital to ensuring their continued success and pathway to the commercial market.”
To date, 145 companies have received MTTCF funding and completed their projects. With an investment of over $10 million these companies have gone on to receive downstream funding from angel and venture investors, federal awards and other resources exceeding $435 million. This is a leverage of the state’s investment through TEDCO of $43.3 to $1.
- AccuStrata, Inc., located in College Park, Md., has developed proprietary software, hardware and patented technology to improve performance and optimize manufacturing for thin film based products. AccuStrata’s initial focus is the solar market.
- Applied Plasma Science, LLC, located in Baltimore, focuses on the research and development of a plasma-based method for graphene synthesis with the ultimate goal of demonstrating the feasibility of the company’s synthesis method for production of graphene in industrial quantities. The enormous need in manufacturing of cheap graphene in industrial quantities is generated by recent emerging technologies such as ultracapacitors, fuel cells and conductive ink.
- Branchpoint Technologies, LLC, located in Baltimore, designs platforms employing precision semiconductor gages for use in medical settings. The company’s proprietary platforms allow for accurate pressure measurements with minimal drift, which has been a barrier for long term accurate monitoring. With the ability to monitor intracranial pressures on a long term basis, Branchpoint believes it will be the first technology to provide a window into the brain in the outpatient setting.
- Combined Technology Solutions, LLC, located in Ridgely, Md., will refine the initial concept of a student project undertaken at the University of Maryland College Park called the Suspension Power Utilization and Recovery System (SPURS), which recovers energy from the suspension system of a vehicles. Combined Technology Solutions will develop this project as a commercial product for 100 mile per gallon (MPG) Technology Group.
- Creatv Microtech, Inc., located in Rockville, Md., is a privately-held development stage diagnostic device company. Its primary proprietary product, CellSieve™, is a precision microfilter used to analyze circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from the peripheral blood of cancer patients. It serves as a liquid biopsy for cancer patients who don’t have a detectable metastatic lesion, or have a lesion too small for biopsy.
- EncephRX, Inc., located in Baltimore, is developing a small molecule platform for treatment of neurodegenerative diseases such as Huntington’s, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease. This platform will provide a first-in-class therapeutic option for preventing the progressive loss of neuron function that characterizes these diseases.
- Euveda Biosciences, Inc., located in Ellicott City, Md., is developing platform microfluidic technologies that enable cell-based assays to be performed with unparalleled miniaturization and precision. These technologies will have immediate applications in pharmaceutical drug discovery research by enabling promising new drug candidates to be identified more accurately, affordably and efficiently.
- Fuzbien Technology Institute, Inc., located in Rockville, Md., is developing detector devices for clinical diagnosis by making use of nanobiotechnology such as Carbon Nanotube Field Effect Transistors (CNTFET) and graphenes. Fuzbien’s current development projects include CNT-FET platform devices, targetspecific detectors like diabetes diagnostics, and their reader apparatus. The result in these detector devices will allow for improvement in test turnaround time and could have tremendous benefits including faster diagnosis and more accurate and portable point-of-care instruments.
- GM Biosciences, Inc., located in Frederick, Md., developed a technology that provides a platform technique for quick detection of analytes, such as biomarkers and pathogens. The proprietary technology can be utilized in different vertical markets, such as cancer biomarkers, clinical diagnostic, veterinary diagnostic, food safety, environmental and bio-defense. This proprietary technique has been verified by proof-of-principle and is currently patent pending.
- OmniSpeech, LLC, located in College Park, Md., has developed a speech extraction algorithm to greatly improve the call clarity of any communication device. The speech extraction algorithm is a speechspecific solution to the noise suppression problem. Instead of focusing on the noise, the algorithm focuses on extracting the speech out of a mixture of speech and stationary or non-stationary noise.
- OptiCul Diagnostics, Inc., located in Rockville, Md., has developed a technology based on absorption spectroscopy, together with a custom-designed, patented, optical cell and algorithm. The optical radiation absorbed by a particular compound or bacterium, serves as its chemical “fingerprint.” OptiCul uses this spectral signature to identify the presence of specific bacteria in biological samples, and its unique optical cell and analyzer increases the path of light through the bacteria-containing sample, thus increasing the sensitivity of the test. OptiCul's technology provides for direct, reagent-free and immediate identification of bacteria in biological samples, whereas traditional diagnostic testing for bacteria relies on culturing, or growth of the suspect bacteria, which involves a wait of at least a day for results and requires the expertise of a laboratory technician.
- SemaConnect, Inc., located in Annapolis, is a leading developer and producer of networked electric vehicle (EV) charging stations and sophisticated software for station owners and EV drivers. With this charging station, municipalities, fleets, offices, multi-family homes, retail/hotel and parking garages now have a safe, easy and affordable charging station option.
- TreeMiner, Inc., located in Boyds, Md., is bringing to market a range of data mining solutions based upon vertical techniques, including classification and association rule mining methods.
- Video Semantics, LLC, located in College Park, Md., is developing cutting-edge contextual video segmentation, tagging and search technology. This technology will, for the first time, enable users to retrieve video segments that precisely match the user's contextual interest, rather than simple keyword matching, without the need for prior manual segmentation and tagging.
- VisiSonics Corporation, located in College Park, Md., allows one to capture, process and understand spatial distribution of sound in real-time, and use it for sound scene recreation, telepresence, localization, noise mitigation and surveillance.
Applications for funding programs are accepted continually and reviewed monthly by the TEDCO funding review team, which includes representatives from TEDCO, the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development and affiliated venture capital groups. Applicants must submit a proposal, commercialization plan for the technology to be developed, scope of work and budget.
Funding Briefings: TEDCO hosts briefings to teach companies how to use TEDCO’s funding programs to help develop, transfer and commercialize technology from Maryland universities and federal laboratories to the Maryland marketplace. A session will be held at TEDCO’s office in Columbia from 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Friday, August 12. The briefing is free, however registration is required. To register, please visit the TEDCO registration website or http://www.marylandtedco.org/calendarofevents/calendar.cfm.