NM Angels primed to launch 2nd ‘startup factory’
$150K being raised to seed invention commercialization
Another New Mexico Angels Startup Factory is in the works to pull new, potentially marketable technologies out of the state’s research universities and national labs.
The N.M. Angels, which unites about 70 people who pool their resources to invest in early stage companies, is raising $150,000 to launch New Mexico Startup Factory II by March as a second holding company to seed commercial development of laboratory inventions that can be spun into business endeavors. The first Startup Factory, launched in 2012, created seven companies in New Mexico, only one of which has failed, said N.M. Angels President John Chavez.
“We expect to fund at least four or five more companies through the second Startup Facto- ry,” Chavez said. “We’re looking at things that can be rapidly spun out with seed funding and little business incubation.”
Six of the seven businesses formed through the first holding company were based on University of New Mexico technology, although some were developed through joint research with Sandia National Laboratories. The new holding company, however, will commercialize more technology from other research institutions apart from UNM.
“We have partnerships with both labs and with New Mexico State University,” Chavez said. “We’re looking now at a new technology from Los Alamos National Laboratory.”
The Startup Factory provides a novel model for facilitating collaboration between local investors and technology transfer professionals. It grew out of the Angels’ long-term partnership with the Science and Technology Corp., UNM’s tech-transfer office, which hosts an annual technology showcase for Angel investors to learn more about potentially marketable UNM inventions.
Some companies formed by the Startup Factory are achieving significant milestones. Lotus Leaf Coatings, for example — which is marketing a super water-repellent coating jointly developed by UNM and Sandia — just signed a distribution and licensing deal this week with Vision-Ease Lens of Minnesota.
Vision-Ease makes and markets lenses for eyewear. It will incorporate Lotus Leaf’s coating into its lenses to improve performance for customers, said Lotus Leaf CEO Lawrence Chavez.
“This partnership will take us into the eyewear market for the first time,” Chavez said. “Vision-Ease distributes their lenses through outlets worldwide.”
Among the Startup Factory’s other companies are three that are commercializing medical technologies to fight cancer and protect against stroke, one that is developing a microencapsulation process to make biopesticides more effective, and another that is marketing a device to speed fiber-optic communications. One of the cancer-fighting companies, ExoVita Biosciences, launched this month.