Louisville-based seed fund backs life-sciences company
BYLINE: Sarah Zopfi Hubbard
The Kentucky Seed Capital Fund has made another investment in an early-stage company. This time, the Louisville-based venture fund has invested $250,000 in Lexington's AllTranz Inc.
AllTranz is a therapeutics research and development company formed out of research at the University of Kentucky
Its founder, Audra Stinchcomb, said she plans to use the money to complete commercialization work of the startup company's lead product, a patch for pain management.
"I think it is great to do this in the state of Kentucky," she said. "I am excited about being able to help patients in an area of unmet need."
The KSCF was created in 2005 and has more than $5 million in funding for early-stage Kentucky or Louisville-area businesses that are developing biomedical or health care-related products or services.
Investors in the KSCF include Humana Inc., the University of Louisville Foundation, Baptist Healthcare System Inc. and Jewish Hospital & St. Mary's HealthCare pInc.
The fund previously has invested in Louisville life-sciences companies ApoImmune Inc., Pradama Inc. and RhinoCyte Inc.
Investors see potential for start-up
George Emont, managing partner of the Kentucky Seed Capital Fund, said the money was invested in one lump sum. He said seed funding is crucial to starting businesses such as AllTranz.
"Seed funding is critical because a lot of these life-sciences (companies) are not going to have revenue in the near term," Emont said. "We need to make sure there are seed-funding sources available so they can get up off the ground and make progress."
Emont said an investment in AllTranz was made even more attractive because of its partnership with MetaCyte Business Lab LLC, a Louisville-based health science business incubator.
"MetaCyte provides a lot of business planning knowledge, which helps the company figure out where it needs to grow. It helps create the initial business plans, and we have a plan for the future, basically," he said.
Steve Gailar, CEO of MetaCyte and co-managing partner for the seed fund, agreed with Emont about the importance of early funding.
"My view is that when you talk about a company that is spinning technology out of a university, the early capital is critical," Gailar said. "It allows the money to be inserted into the company to achieve technical milestones."
Kentucky Seed Capital Fund
Type of business: Venture fund that invests in early stage life sciences Offices: Louisville Medical Center and Coldstream Research Campus in Lexington Amount managed: More than $5 million Managing partners: George Emont and Steve Gailar Web site: www.kyseed.com