By Allan Maurer
GREENSBORO, WINSTON SALEM, HIGH POINT, NC – The Piedmont Triad Entrepreneurial Network (PTEN), which invested small amounts in 30 companies since 2004 and conducted business plan competitions and a venture conference, is closing its doors.
CEO Jon Obermeyer tells TechJournal South that the foundations backing PTEN, the Winston Salem Alliance, Action Greensboro, and High Point Partners, all economic development organizations, declined to continue supporting it.
The foundations invested $2.75 million in the organization, which was founded in 2004.
“They decided we were not a priority,” Obermeyer notes. “It had nothing to do with our results.”
He admits the early stage companies PTEN backed are slow on job creation. Many are still in proof of concept.
One, however, Ionics Medical, recently received 510k clearance from the FDA for its spinal fusion medical device. “We helped Ionics get the preparation for that done,” says Obermeyer.
The company’s device mimics the shock-absorbing features of the natural disc and is vertically expandable to provide a precise fit for a wide range of disc space heights.
Other companies that received small, non-dilutive investments from PTEN include C-change Surgical in Winston Salem, Notion Music, which developed software for music learning and composition, in Greensboro, and Clean Technics International in High Point.
The companies it backed have raised an additional $8.8 million.
PTEN also distributed $635,000 in prizes to 35 companies through its annual PTEN GAP business plan competition and did it a unique way intended to train the companies to deal with investors.
“We gave them the money in tranches and they had to meet milestones,” explains Obermeyer. If they won $30,000, we gave them three tranches of $10,000 each. If someone was working on a patent, we would want to see a patent filing.”
PTEN also launched the first nanotechnology conference in North Carolina and ran it for three years. It received national press coverage in the industry publication, “Smalltimes.”
It held an investor conference in August. It had companies from Memphis, Charlottesville, the Research Triangle and elsewhere present in additon to Triad firms.
“Arborvax presented in April and CEO Malcolm Thomas says he raised money because of it,” says Obermeyer. In all those companies raised an additional $34 million since the conference, he adds.
“We worked with other organizations such as the NC Council for Entrepreneurial Development and the Piedmont Angel Networks. We were doing all the right things,” says Obermeyer.
“My question now, is who’s going to do this work?”
On the Web: www.pten.org
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