UAVC selects first three spinouts

Three US-based spinouts from University of Arizona (UA) have raised $2m on average from UAVenture Capital Fund (UAVC), a venture capital firm focused on the university’s intellectual property, Tucson.com reported today.

The recipients were as disk drive technology developer Codelucida, therapeutic painkiller supplier Regulonix and long-haul delivery marketplace creator Post.Bid.Ship. UAVC did not detail the exact levels of investment in each company.

Codelucida is creating error-correction codes for solid-state drives, which rely on such codes to improve robustness by increasing tolerance to malfunctioning data blocks. The system exploits low-density parity-check decryption, a technology capable of reducing processing latency and energy usage.

Codelucida was co-founded by Bane Vasic, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and mathematics who heads up the university’s Error Correction Coding Laboratory.

Vasic was assisted by Shiva Planjery, a PhD graduate from the university, as well as David Declercq from Graduate School in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Communications Networks in France.

The capital will help sustain Codelucida as it looks to secure strategic partnerships in the computer industry.  Codelucida previously secured $700,000 in February 2017 led by Desert Angels, with participation from Tech Coast Angels and Arizona Tech Investors.

Regulonix is working on a treatment to replace addictive and toxic opioids such as morphine. The compound performed favourably in animal trials and will be moved into the clinic before Regulonix seeks market approval from US regulator Food and Drug Administration.

Two members of UA’s Pharmacology department – Rajesh Khanna and May Khanna – co-founded Regulonix with Vijay Gokhale from the university’s Bio5 Institute research hub.

Post.Bid.Ship has created a digital marketplace for freight-hauling that matches suitable delivery providers to clients requiring shipping.

The company, started by Jarret Hamstreet and two fellow graduates from Arizona’s McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship, has now raised more than $5m of capital to date.

UAVC backed Post.Bid.Ship as part of a $2.1m tranche that will take the latter’s series A round to $4.6m once finalised later in June 2018, according to Phoenix Business Journal. The round also includes Jarret Hamstreet himself, along with Arizona Tech Investors, Desert Angels and VC fund Arizona Founders Fund.

Fletcher McCusker, CEO and founder of UAVC, said: “Today the UAVC Fund has announced investments in three UA related companies that each offer cutting edge science or technology capable of having an enormous impact in the world.

“We are proud to be part of the legacy being established by president Bobby Robbins, TechLaunch Arizona, and our brilliant scientists, inventors and students associated with UA.”