Seven Maryland firms latest recipients of transfer fund investments

BYLINE: Karen Buckelew

Tia Gao's company is just 10 months old, but the president of Aid Networks is hoping to get the firm's medical sensor technology into clinical trials very soon.

An investment from the Maryland Technology Transfer Fund, a state-funded program intended to transfer to companies technology developed in academia and federal labs in the state, is helping to make that possible, she said.

Gao plans to use the $74,990 to cover prototypes of her firm's patient monitoring technology and the studies she anticipates conducting at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.

"Running some clinical studies is one of the most important things we can do," Gao said. "We want to ... prove clinical outcomes in a hospital using this grant before we can say we will build a sustainable business off of this. "

Aid Networks, which employs just four at its offices in the Rockville Innovation Center incubator facility, is precisely the type of firm the Maryland Technology Transfer Fund was developed to support, said Renee M. Winsky, president and executive director of the Maryland Technology Development Corp., or TEDCO, which administers the fund.

"One of the reasons the General Assembly created TEDCO was to get into the riskier level of investment in small startup companies," Winsky said.

The transfer fund, which announced seven investments worth a total of $525,000 on Wednesday, is designed to help small startups commercialize technology developed at federal labs or at the state's universities, she said.

TEDCO, a quasi-public agency, administers much of the state's economic development funds for technology, including the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund.

This year, the Maryland Technology Transfer Fund is distributing $1.95 million in increments as much as $75,000 for each firm.

Over the years, the fund has invested in 78 firms for a total of nearly $4.8 million. Those companies in turn have generated $162.8 million in further investment from venture capital firms, angel investors and public programs.

That, according to TEDCO, means every dollar the fund expends brings $35.56 in further investment to the state of Maryland.

The recipient companies are not required to repay the funds unless they commercialize a product, and then they owe no more than twice the amount of their original award.

But Ravikant Barot, founder and CEO of Frederick-based Oxicool Inc., said the Maryland Technology Transfer Fund means more than just $75,000 for his firm.

The company, which will be a year old in December, is working with the U.S. Navy to develop personal micro-climate systems for uses including cooling people who are wearing heavy body armor.

Barot, whose firm is located at the Frederick Innovative Technology Center Inc. incubator, is using the advice and support network both TEDCO and the incubator provide to entrepreneurs, he said.

"It helps to have a good relationship with people who kind of know the game," said Barot.

Neil Belson, founder and president of NewAgriculture Inc. in Port Tobacco, said the $75,000 will be integral to obtaining intellectual property rights to the technology he has developed with researchers at the University of Maryland, College Park.

The technology is a method of deriving proteins from tobacco leaves for possible uses in food - such proteins are non-allergenic, unlike other edible proteins - adhesives and emulsifiers.

The patents Belson is seeking are key to his firm's survival, he said.

"In the life sciences industry, without [intellectual property], it would be very difficult to secure investment," Belson explained.

John Korpela, manager of business incubator development for Montgomery County, said associations with programs like TEDCO and can boost a firm.

"Each time you get a grant, it validates you ... because the company has been vetted," Korpela said.

Gao, whose medical sensors are designed as affordable alternatives that would allow hospitals to wirelessly monitor the vital signs of almost all patients, said she hopes to see future benefits from the money.

"Hopefully, it'll help us raise the first round of investment," she said.