Indiana entrepreneurs weary of hitting dry holes with angel investors and venture capitalists are turning to Chinese investors
who are eager to diversify their portfolios, latch onto American innovations—and take advantage of a federal visa program.
A Lebanon-based startup wants to build a call center here and add up to 300 jobs, but state and local officials are struggling
with a big obstacle to keeping the company here.
The uncertainty of health care reform and a bad economy curtailed venture capital flow in 2009.
The uncertainty of health care reform and a bad economy curtailed venture capital flow in 2009. That trend hit Indianapolis,
but the rest of the state actually saw an increase.
Jim Pearson knows a thing or two about raising money from venture capitalists. And he has some advice for BioCrossroads:
Teach entrepreneurs the value of money.
More than half of the venture capital fund’s original investors took a pass on its $58 million successor, the newly launched
INext.
The new INext fund is the successor to the $73 million Indiana Future Fund, which the life science initiative raised in 2003.
The fund would acquire experimental drugs and use Lilly R&D staff to try to prove their effectiveness, perhaps boosting Lilly’s drug pipeline.
The amount raised since October is in addition to the $69.9 million it received in May from three venture
firms on the coasts, in what was the third-largest venture deal in the nation during the second quarter,
according to the National Venture Capital Association.
The Innovate Indiana Fund will invest $5 million over the next five years to commercialize IU technologies and another
$5 million to help IU-affiliated startups get off the ground.
After no Indiana health and life sciences firms announced venture capital deals in the second quarter, five did so in the
third, and two more have already this month.
Money will help the company refine its tool to treat acute kidney injury.
The company, which guides working adults and their parents through the maze of decisions and agencies involved in care for seniors, plans to use the money primarily to augment its sales staff and operations.
A Purdue University student who invented a soy-based modeling dough walked away with a $300,000 investment after appearing
Tuesday on the ABC show “Shark Tank.”
Locally based venture capital firms Cardinal Equity Partners and Centerfield Capital Partners have joined with Chicago-based
bank Harris NA to recapitalize the state’s largest independent physical therapy provider.
If nothing else, you have to admire the patience shown by ExactTarget and Aprimo, two of the area’s hottest tech companies,
as they await better conditions to launch their initial public offerings.
Eli Lilly and Co. has reorganized its venture capital division and simultaneously poured in an additional $25 million.
More emerging life science companies have found life in the form of federal
Small Business Innovation Research grants.
Carmel-based Dormir LLC’s announcement July 29 of $12 million in venture financing was the second local life sciences
deal announced in July. It could suggest a turnaround from a woeful second-quarter performance, when Indiana life
sciences firms announced zero venture capital deals.
Carmel-based Dormir Inc., which operates sleep study centers and sleep equipment stores around the country, raised $12 million
in venture capital from three out-of-state firms. The company plans use the proceeds to acquire six to 10 companies this year
and more next year, according to CEO Tim Miller.
