Madison, WI - GenTel BioSciences, Inc., a privately-held protein chip-based life sciences company, recently completed a critical round of financing activity raising over two million dollars, announced its President and Chief Executive Officer Alex Vodenlich.
Two prominent Wisconsin-based investor organizations contributed the majority of the financing; NEW Capital Fund, LP, based in Appleton, Wisconsin and Wisconsin Investment Partners, LLC, a life science-oriented angel investment network based in Madison.
NEW Capital Fund targets companies in Wisconsin with the potential for rapid growth and that are certifiable under Wisconsin’s Act 255 investment tax credit program, according to the Fund’s general partner Charlie Goff. NEW Capital Fund chose to invest in GenTel BioSciences as the company has already proven itself as a sound and promising venture.
“We believe GenTel's recent development of a universal platform for its range of multiplex immunoassay tests positions the company for significant growth,” said Goff. Since its formation seven years ago, Wisconsin Investment Partners has focused on seed round investment strategies for life sciences companies like GenTel and has so far invested in fifteen.
“We have monitored GenTel’s performance for a few years, and it was primarily Alex Vodenlich’s energy in selling and his marketing orientation that led us to our investment,” said the network’s co-manager Richard Leazer. “We like the progress they’ve made on revenue, and the market size and growth characteristics of the company are a plus. Overall, we thought that this was a superior opportunity for our angel network and decided we wanted to invest.”
“Our primary goal in 2006 was to raise money for the company, and we achieved this goal” said Vodenlich. Although he initially intended to raise $1.5 million, Vodenlich increased the total to two million when an exciting opportunity arose for GenTel that required additional cash resources. The complete round of financing consisted of three phases – the first two each raised a half million dollars and the final phase brought in one million. In addition to the two investor organizations, several individuals contributed to the funding.
