By Stephen Johnson, special to TechJournal South

VIENNA, VA — Five technology companies seeking funding used this morning’s Grubstake Breakfast to pitch their business plans to a room filled with institutional and angel investors, entrepreneurs, business leaders and service providers.

The Grubstake Breakfast, sponsored by the Business Alliance of George Mason University, is the longest-running networking and investors forum of its kind in the Mid-Atlantic region.

The Grubstake Breakfast provides an opportunity for early-stage companes seeking focused growth capital in the range of $250,000 to $2 million to present their investment opportunities to a targeted audience of potential investors and business partners.

Companies selected to present represent a diverse group of industry sectors and typically include a combination of IT, software, life sciences, telecommunicartions and government-oriented products and services.

Companies presenting today were:

• Reston, Virginia-based Eye Q Development (www.eyedevelopment.com) utilizes an array of patent-pending techbnology and proprietary software platforms to inlay RFID into tickets, ID cards, and water-resistant wrist bands to allow tracking of assets and personnel for security and marketing data analysis.

  The company is seeking $2 million series “A” investment that will be used for sales/marketing, product completion of additional software, and beta and close of current pipeline.

• Salisbury, North Carolina-based GlobalTrac, Inc. has developed a unique and economical means of providing full food animal and produce trace ability in alignment with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Animal Identification System (NAIS) and Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS).

  GlobalTrac is seeking $2-5 million in this round of funding to add to staff, migrate its system to the new Teo 800 due to be released in the fall of 2009, commercialize its product and launch to the national agri-business market.

• Herndon, Virginia-based IRFlex Corporation (www.irflex.com) develops and supplies mid-infrared fiber-optic devices for the military. The company’s products are key components in the new anti-missile systems for military and commerical aircraft. The company is seek private funding of approximately $1 million to acquire the fiber-optic equipment and produce commercial products.
• Maryland-based Loladex (www.loladex.com) is a local search engine that allows users to find local businesses based on recommendations from people they know. By integrating with existing social networks Loladex emulates the word-of-mouth process that most people prefer for choosing local merchants. With $350,000 invested so far, Loladex is seeking an additional $750,000 in seed funding to support growth of its existing product and expansion into other Web, social and mobile platforms.
• Vienna, Virginia-based Ordia Solutions, Inc. (www.ordiasolutions.com) has a Web-based sofware application that allows law enforcement officers and other first-responders to communicate and collaborate visually in real-time using tactical graphics, digital maps and shared workspaces to enable highly effective command & control without ever having to set up a physical command post.

  Ordia Solutions has already raised $630,000 and is currently seeking an additional $500,000 to continue operations and build customer support infrastructure while the early-adopter deals continue toward closing.

The next Grubstake Breakfast is October 16. The application deadline for presenting companies is September 12.

For more information, see: www.businessalliance.org/grubstake.html.

© 2008, TechJournal South. All rights reserved.