Cancer cure company wins business plan challenge

(continued from previous page)

The third-place finisher was Remedy Diagnostics, founded by graduates of the University of Texas at Austin. Remedy has a novel approach to detecting breast cancer in its early stages which they say is less expensive, more effective and more comfortable to women. The protype system can take a 3D image of a woman's breast, as opposed to a typical two-dimensional picture obtained from mammograms, and detect tumors before they mineralize, as mammograms do. The company has already talked to General Electric about a potential acquisition, according to its CEO, Jody Williamson.

But the judges were wary of Remedy, as well as some of the other life-sciences businesses, because it can be difficult to convince doctors to use new technology. They also worried that it can be difficult to get insurance companies to pay for new procedures.

Price Finder, a company started by two graduate students from the University of Michigan, plans to deliver real-time gas prices via a GPS (Global Positioning System) device in cars. To do that, it will buy data on gas transactions from credit card companies like Fleet. The company plans to sell a subscription service to truckers, beginning in the Houston area, and eventually offer a consumer service paid for by advertisements from gas stations.

One of the venture capitalists doubted the viability of the service, on the grounds that it could more readily be a feature to a cell phone or GPS device, via a company like Google or Yahoo, rather than a standalone application. Another was more antagonistic.

"If your biggest market is truckers, why don't you have prices on diesel gas?" Claudio Chiuchiarelli, an investor with Banyan Securities, said during the Q&A period after the company's pitch.

Another finalist, named Enprea, is an upstart from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Its plan, which called for an initial $1.8 million from venture capitalists, was to commercialize a carbon nanotube material that it claimed boosts the capacity of lithium batteries by 200 percent. The company's "zeolite templating" technique, for which it has patents, would be a low-cost add-on for batteries to improve their lifetime, according to Enprea.

Yet the Enprea entrepreneurs were met with skepticism, given that many of the VCs had reviewed similar business plans and had knowledge of projects promising greater results. For example, Ron Weissman, an executive from Stanford Research Institute International, said his organization has technology in this area.

After the presentations, the judges met in a private conference room to debate about which team should take the prize. David Epstein, a partner at venture company Crosslink Capital, called the lively conversation true to one that might happen at a firm when its partners are considering an investment. "It gets pretty spirited," he said.

"The only difference," he said, "is that in a real meeting when doubts are expressed, we would come up with a list of questions to take back to the company."

Epstein said in his five years of coming to the challenge, his firm has looked at a few companies but never invested. Enprea might be the one team he may invest in this year, he said.

"For me, it's a community thing," Epstein said.

[ptkdude--2008]

Where's the grammer at?

And yes, I misspelled grammar on purpose.