Early-stage startups meet potential investors, partners at Triangle Venture Day

NOTE: This article was written by Kyle Marshall for the NC Biotech website.

The Triangle is known as a hotbed for innovation, thanks in large part to the partnerships between multiple stakeholders, including universities, investors and ecosystem support organizations.

In that spirit, last month’s Triangle Venture Day set the scene for investors from across the nation to learn about the latest promising innovations, specifically in medical technology.

A total of 20 Triangle startups – mostly early-stage companies founded and nurtured through university research – pitched their ideas to an audience that included more than 50 investor and strategic partnership groups at the Raleigh Convention Center. It was the latest Triangle Venture Day, following a 2023 event focused on therapeutics startups and two in 2022 – a spring event with therapeutics companies and a fall event with medtech startups.

“Combining forces with our Triangle Venture Day partners for our fourth event has allowed us to once again obtain leverage on each institution’s individual company building efforts – this time for rising medical device entrepreneurs and their potential investors,” said Jeff Welch, Ph.D., director of the Duke New Ventures program in Duke University’s Office of Translation and Commercialization. “The investment community continues to provide clear feedback that combined events are strongly preferred – and initiation of follow-up conversations and closed fund rounds backs this feedback up over the past three years. We are excited to see where the connections made at the event will lead our emerging medtech companies. The opportunity to combine this particular venture day with NCBiotech’s 40th anniversary celebration also allowed us to showcase the unique and important role NCBiotech has played in the North Carolina ecosystem for many years now. Congratulations to NCBiotech on its first four decades and looking forward to the next four!”

Collaborative effort

Triangle Venture Day is the collaborative work of four institutions: Duke New Ventures, N.C. State University’s Office of Research Commercialization, KickStart Venture Services from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the North Carolina Biotechnology Center.

Most of the presenting companies were hatched from the three Triangle universities. In addition to company presentations, the day featured networking time and a panel discussion on aligning medical technology solutions with the needs of hospitals and health systems. The Sept. 19 event was sponsored by BD (Becton, Dickinson and Co.) and Teleflex.

“We’re proud to create a platform that showcases the full spectrum of innovation emerging from the Triangle region,” said Mireya McKee, Ph.D., director of UNC’s KickStart Venture Services. “By combining the efforts of our region’s leading universities and research institutions, we make it far more compelling for investors from across the country to engage with multiple startups in one place. This comprehensive view, along with the diversity of ideas and solutions, maximizes the value of their time and strengthens the potential for meaningful partnerships.”

Tim Martin, interim assistant vice chancellor at NC State’s Office of Research Commercialization, added, “We’re very proud of the great companies that pitched to represent not only NC State University but the Triangle region as a hub for medtech innovations. We’re especially excited to share the great innovators from NC State from the early-stage innovative professors to the Series A startups with devices directly impacting human life.”

“A great part of this event is the collaboration between the partners, sharing resources and relationships, with the goal of catalyzing investment into promising companies,” said Mike Carnes, vice president of emerging company development at NCBiotech. “The time that the planning committee spent selecting and preparing the companies for the event was evident, and the investors really appreciate the polish. We were excited to see the conversations happening between investors and companies. We know a number of these interactions have already led to follow up meetings that will get companies one step closer to closing the deal.”

Valuable feedback

One presenter, Sarah Rowe-Conlon, pitched Sonotherapeutics, her early-stage venture in wound therapy, and received important input from engaging with audience members.

“It’s really nice to get the kind of questions that get me thinking about the business,” said Rowe-Conlon, associate professor in the Microbiology and Immunology Department at the UNC School of Medicine. “The biggest thing I’ve learned is that we may need to think of another indication for our beachhead market. We got some really interesting ideas on how to do that.”

Likewise, Stefan Stryker, CEO of Calidar, a startup that’s pioneering 4D mammography to improve the precision of breast cancer diagnoses, considered investor feedback to be one of the primary benefits of presenting at Venture Day.

“We’ve been operating for two and a half years, but a lot of that time we’ve been in stealth as we furthered IP and prepared our technology for first-in-human studies,” said Stryker, an entrepreneur whose company emerged from Duke New Ventures. Before his presentation, Stryker said he was “excited about having a chance to see a larger crowd’s reaction, both of investors and leaders in the healthcare space, and see what conversations come of it.”

Investor perspective

For investors who participated, Venture Day represented a chance to hear from entrepreneurs who might not be on their investment firms’ radar.

“The day was filled with some impressive companies that are addressing critical needs,” said Beth Smith, board member at RTP Angel Fund, which provides seed and pre-seed stage capital and mentorship to early-stage founders. “It was wonderful to see the innovation and the collaboration across the Triangle.”

Alicia Bowers, senior vice president of innovation and new ventures at Advocate Health in Charlotte, said it was important for her and others participating in the panel discussion to give an insider’s view of what health systems are looking for. I hope patients realize that we’re not just there to do the same thing over and over again,” she said. “We’re there to go through your life with you and keep getting better, too.”

The growth of Triangle Venture Day over the past few years is the result of close collaboration between the three universities, NCBiotech, and the investors, partners and sponsors who attend, said Greta Brunet, senior director of investments for emerging company development at NCBiotech, who led planning for the event and moderated the panel discussion.

“Triangle MedTech Venture Day serves as a crucial platform for bridging the knowledge gap between innovative startups, health systems, and investors,” Brunet said. “By fostering direct interactions and meaningful discussions, we’re not only showcasing the region’s technology innovations but also creating opportunities for all parties to better understand each other’s needs and perspectives. This event is instrumental in building lasting relationships that will drive innovation and growth in our thriving medtech ecosystem.”

Presenting Companies

These early-stage companies participated in Triangle Venture Day (*denotes startups with NCBiotech funding):

From Duke New Ventures:

• Calidar*
• CytexOrtho*
• Deep Blue Medical Advances*
• VQ Biomedical*

From N.C. State’s Office of Research Commercialization:

• Cervu
• DermiSense
• Gradient Medical
• MyoMech
• SonoVascular*
• Vizma Life Sciences*

From UNC-Chapel Hill KickStart Venture Services:

• Anelleo
• Codetta Bio
• MaiaZura
• Redbud Labs*
• Sonotherapeutics
• Vetta Solutions

From NCBiotech:

• Cerulean Scientific
• Ideal Medical Technologies
• Translation Imaging Innovations
• URO-1