Summit to showcase tech firms

Rubber tires provide the base for these Energy Related Devices’ reinforced solar panels. The company wants to launch an assembly operation in Tucumcari that would meld standard industry panels with a unique sheet-metal backing that would help cool the solar cells and strengthen the panels. (COURTESY of ENERGY RELATED DEVICES)

Twelve companies will vie for potentially millions of dollars in venture funding this week at the annual high-tech showcase Technology Ventures Deal Stream Summit.

The three-day event, which starts Tuesday, affords investors from across America the chance to hear about and sink money into innovative companies that are commercializing technologies developed in national laboratories, universities and research institutions.

“Checks aren’t written at the Deal Stream Summit,” said John Freisinger, president and CEO of Technology Ventures Corp. “The summit is really sort of a debutante ball to introduce the investment opportunities to the investment community.”

On Wednesday, each of the presenting companies – nine from New Mexico and three from out of state – will get 10 minutes to pitch their products and services. They are as diverse as a water purifier that can disinfect 80 gallons with salt and an electrical charge to an electron accelerator that provides improved treatment for inoperable tumors, to name just two.

The event’s record suggests the presenters’ chances are pretty fair: One in three historically have been funded – including three of last year’s nine participants, Freisinger said.

Ophthalmologic technician Sheila Nemeth of VisionQuest i-Rx, left, takes a non-dilated retinal image of Ana Edwards. The company is one of this year’s summit presenters. (COURTESy of VISIONQUEST I-RX)

Here’s a closer look at three participating New Mexico companies:

Energy Related Devices: Adapting solar for ranchers

Then-Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist Robert Hockaday bundled his ideas for fixing the world’s major problems into what he calls his “Book of Dreams” when he founded Energy Related Devices, first as a hobby business, and then as a fully incorporated company in 1996.

“The idea was the Cold War is over, let’s go solve the major problems,” he said. His attention currently is on making a more-efficient but tougher solar panel.

Just more than a year ago, Hockaday closed his lab in Los Alamos and relocated to Tucumcari, which was looking for a job-producing, anchor industry. If it can get financing, the company plans to launch an assembly operation that melds standard industry solar panels with ERD’s unique sheet-metal backing that not only keeps solar cells cool and more efficient, but also strengthens the panels to stand up to high winds and other severe weather. ERD initially plans to target the ranching community, which can use the panels to power pumps for watering cattle.

“Almost every panel in the industry can be adapted. The idea is we can take their panel and put our part onto it,” he said, noting hundreds of jobs could be created.

The critical piece is a flexible heat sink developed by ERD that imitates shark skins, he said.

“More or less these are sheet metal that are formed into a structure that removes heat from the back side of the solar panel,” he said. “It supports the whole panel from the back side so it strengthens the panel and makes it so you can actually use it, in say, abusive weather, hurricanes and high winds.”

Because of their toughness, the panels don’t require a racking system and could be mounted on old windmill or water towers instead of having to construct concrete pads. If those aren’t available, they could be mounted on old rubber tires and easily moved to other locations if the ranch has multiple wells.

APPCityLife: Going mobile for the locals

Lisa Abeyta is the founder of APPCityLife, an Albuquerque startup she’s confident has found a niche in the growing market for mobile apps – “solving the problems of mobiles for the local audience,” to use her words. It has earned “Top 20 Hottest Startup” recognition from technology blog VentureBeat.

APPCityLife is developing mobile apps cities and businesses can use to inform users. (COURTESY of APPCITYLIFE)

“(The city of) Albuquerque approached me last year as the mayor was getting ready to announce the open-data initiative that would be all the different feeds they created for the website that you could go up and access,” she said. “But they needed a flagship app to really kind of show what you could do with open data. So I worked with the transit department, which really had a serious problem: They were getting about a million calls a year to the 311 call service to one specific reason – where is my bus?”

The result was the ABQ RIDE app. It reduced the 311 calls and gained about 5,000 users. Working on open-data issues for the city also laid the foundation for its proposition to summit investors.

The company plans to provide a mobile “gamification” platform for cities, businesses or other entities to reward people for participating in an activity. A public art app being developed for the city, for instance, would give users a chance to win an iPad for participating in a scavenger hunt that involves viewing public art, not only encouraging people to see the art, but giving the city feedback on how many people view it.

A business like Vans could issue a challenge to kids to use skate parks and reward them with points toward free or discounted merchandise, she said.

“There are companies that are beginning to circle around this, but nobody is doing what we’re doing,” Abeyta said.

The platform can also be used for local businesses to advertise or offer coupons. “Imagine you’re riding a bus and you can get coupons from the businesses that are right where (you) go every day,” she said.

VisionQuest i-Rx: Targeting diabetes-related eye disease

Peter Soliz, president and CEO of Albuquerque-based VisionQuest Biomedical, presented at the summit about three years ago when his company was in early stage development of a software screening for diabetes-related eye disease.

The company wasn’t successful that time, but it continued with research funding from the National Eye Institute and spun off VisionQuest i-Rx in 2011 to provide tele-ophthalmology services commercially. This year, it is seeking to raise about $2 million to complete the software’s validation by the federal Food and Drug Administration and to launch “clinics” in New Mexico and Texas, Soliz said.

Soliz said there are almost 28 million diabetics in the U.S., but only about 19,000 ophthalmolo-gists. But as many as two thirds of those individuals may not, in fact, need to see a specialist.

The algorithm written into the software is designed to “triage out” individuals at low risk for eye disease, leaving only those who actually need medical intervention, Soliz said.

“If we could only pass those that need intervention, then they (eye-care specialists) would be spending 80 to 90 percent of their time treating patients that absolutely need treatment,” he said.

VisionQuest has completed more than 10,000 screenings for eye disease without the software the past 18 months, rotating retinal-imaging cameras among 15 clinics in New Mexico with permanent cameras at four clinics in Texas. Each clinic is networked into a secure communication system to electronically transmit the images to optometrists for evaluation, and then a referral to an opththamologist if necessary.

“In the future,” he said, “when the software gets approved by the FDA, it will enable the doctors to see more patients with disease and not have to deal with those without disease.”