15 Maryland Startups Awarded Technology Transfer Funds
by Christine Hansen
VisiSonics Corporation, one of the companies that received the award, develops technological applications for areas such as architectural acoustics.
The Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO) awarded fifteen Maryland technology startups $75,000 each through TEDCO’s Maryland Technology Transfer and Commercialization Fund. The Fund’s goal is to foster greater collaboration between businesses, Maryland universities and federal laboratories to bring technology into the marketplace.
The companies that received the fund include: AccuStrata, Inc.; Applied Plasma Science, LLC; Branchpoint Technologies, LLC; Combined Technology Solutions, LLC; Creatv Microtech, Inc.; EncephRX, Inc.; Euveda Biosciences, Inc.; Fuzbien Technology Institute, Inc.; GM Biosciences, Inc.; OmniSpeech, LLC; Opticul Diagnostics, Inc.; SemaConnect, Inc.; TreeMiner, Inc.; Video Semantics, LLC and VisiSonics Corporation.
According to TEDCO, 145 companies have received the tech transfer funding to date, and each of the companies have gone on to receive downstream funding from angel and venture investors. One such company, Expression Pathology, received the tech transfer award in 2004.
“Expression Pathology received MTTCF in January of 2004. Since then, the company was able to raise significant downstream financing, including a series of angel investments,” said Henry Ahn, Program Manager for Technology Funding Programs at TEDCO. “The company has been able to successfully form collaborative relationships and partnerships while expanding its patent portfolio. Today, it continues to operate as a successful business in Rockville, Maryland.”
Combined Technology Solutions, based in Ridgely, Md., will use the funds to commercialize a product that students from University of Maryland College Park designed. The product, the Suspension Power Utilization and Recovery System (SPURS), recovers energy from the suspension system of vehicle.
Video by Combined Technology Solutions
VisiSonics Corporation in College Park has developed technology that allows one to capture, process and understand spatial distribution of sound in real-time. The technology can be used for sound scene recreation, telepresence, localization, noise mitigation and surveillance.
“Our company designs algorithms and intellectual property that allow you to solve problems,” Bill Strum, Vice President of Business Development.
“The TEDCO funding allowed us to focus on our core capabilities, which is the development of acoustic, analytical algorithms. The funding enabled us to outsource low-level design functions and therefore accelerated our time to market.”
