Arkansas Tech Summit Provides Perspective for Entrepreneurs, Investors

By Ben Boulden

 

Ping Fong, left, moderates the afternoon panel at the summit. Panel members are, left to right, Christopher Rand, Brian Clevinger, Steve Bethel and Brad Henry.

Clevinger and Brad Henry visit during a break in the summit schedule.

Nov. 26, 2014 | Just as mountain climbers can see most clearly from a summit top, the Arkansas Technology Summit in Little Rock and North Little Rock from Nov. 12-13 provided 175 entrepreneurs a clear vision of the investment environment for technology-based startups in the state.

The event was organized by UAMS; UAMS BioVentures; the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville; the University of Arkansas at Little Rock; and Arkansas State University.

Co-chairs of the Tech Summit for UAMS BioVentures were Marie Chow, Ph.D., interim director, and Ben Wofford, director of business development.

The Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub in the Argenta district of North Little Rock on Nov. 13 hosted a day of panel discussions and break-out sessions for entrepreneurs from companies founded on research and innovation. The day followed an opening night reception at the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock.

“The goals of the summit were to increase outside venture capital and private equity investment in the presenting companies, increase the visibility of Arkansas technology companies, and drive economic development in the state,” said Ben Wofford.. “Those goals were achieved and even exceeded.”

An afternoon panel discussion on company growth and late-stage funding featured Brian Clevinger, co-founder and managing partner of Prolog Ventures of St. Louis, Missouri; Searcy native Christopher Rand, co-founder and partner of TriStar Technology Ventures in Nashville, Tennessee;  Steve Bethel, CEO of Angel Eye Camera Systems; and Brad Henry, vice president of development finance at the Arkansas Development Finance Authority (ADFA). The afternoon panel was moderated by Ping Fong, business development consultant for Biomedical Management Resources and who has returned to his childhood home of Arkansas after many years in the medical device industry in Utah.

“The number of funds available to new companies based in the middle of the country is very small,” Clevinger said. “It’s a tough world out there. The good news, though, is the rise of angel capital has been really phenomenal and so different from just a few years ago. They are filling in some of the gaps left by venture capital.”

Rand said venture capital firms on the East and West coasts generally expect a much higher rate of return on investment than venture capital firms that operate predominantly in the middle of the country. Like Clevinger, he saw the rise of angel investment as new and positive.

Bethel gave a summary account of Angel Eye’s two-year history and how it secured support from Rand and investment from TriStar, funding through the Seed Capital Investment Program from the Arkansas Science and Technology Authority as well as state tax credits for the Arkansas Economic Development Commission and angel capital from ADFA.

The Angel Eye system uses a camera placed at the baby’s bedside in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) so that parents and other family members who can’t be at the hospital can view the baby 24 hours a day. This system helps promote bonding between parents and their premature babies, who sometimes have to stay in the hospital for weeks or months. Angel Eye Camera Systems LLC was organized in January 2013 to exclusively license this proprietary technology from UAMS.

“We are fortunate to have innovators at UAMS creating technologies like the Angel Eye system and then be able to move them out to the rest of the world” Bethel said. “We’re a technology company. It’s innovate or die. We have to continually improve our communication platform that started in a narrow niche in the NICUas we expand into other areas of the hospitals.”

Other UAMS-affiliated, presenting companies at the summit were: Acetaminophen Toxicology, Ascendant Diagnostics, Biobotic Solutions, EZRA Innovations, HD Nursing, InterveXion, Mitogene and Rx Results.

A morning panel discussion focused on an overview of life science, technology, research and development and early stage funding. The panel included Jerry Adams, director of the Arkansas Research Alliance and UAMS BioVentures chair; Mike Douglas, former BioVentures director and director of the Texas Life Sciences Collaboration Center in Georgetown, Texas; Jeff Stinson, director of Fund for Arkansas’ Future and UALR TechLaunch; and Carol Reeves, Ph.D., associate vice provost for entrepreneurship at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.