Toledo-area venture and business development group Rocket Ventures is looking to raise $1.5 million from the community to secure a matching dollar amount from the state of Ohio — or the group’s future could be in doubt.
Dan Slifko, director of the group, told the Toledo Blade that the $15 million in funding that launched the venture in 2007 is running out. An additional $3 million — with half the amount from the “community” and the other half from the state — would extend Rocket Ventures’ budget by about two years.
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Slifko wouldn’t say how much of the $1.5 million Rocket Ventures has been able to raise, but time is apparently running out. Feb. 2 is the deadline for submitting the amount of money the community has pledged to support Rocket Ventures. The fact that he’s taking his cause to the local newspaper in late January probably isn’t a good sign.
“I don’t think there’s any question of if the state is going through [with its financing],” Slifko told the Blade. “The bigger challenge is raising the $1.5 million.”
Rocket Ventures typically focuses on pre-revenue companies and begins with an investment of $250,000, the group’s former director, Greg Knudson, told MedCity News in an interview last year.
Through follow-on rounds, that per-company amount can grow as high as $1 million from Rocket Ventures, but the average is closer to $500,000. About 60 percent of Rocket’s investments go to biosciences, Knudson said.
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Portfolio companies include Mithridion, which is developing Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia drugs; ADS Biotechnology, which is developing a blood volume replacement product; and Accord Biosciences, which is developing a device to screen for pulmonary hypertension.
[Photo from flickr user Erik Charlton]