Sterling Venture Partners Leads Round, Including Allianz, MacAndrews & Forbes
And Returning Investors, Core Capital and Mid-Atlantic Venture Funds
GAITHERSBURG, Md., June 25 /PRNewswire/ -- (BIO 2001, booth #1237) Viaken
Systems Inc. (Viaken(TM)), the end-to-end bioinformatics solutions provider to
the biopharmaceutical industry, today announced that it has secured second
round equity funding totaling $13 million. The financing comes from lead
investor Sterling Venture Partners, and new participating investors MacAndrews
& Forbes, Allianz, Schoffstall Ventures, and e-media. Repeat investors
include, Core Capital Partners and Mid-Atlantic Venture Funds.
"We are thrilled to welcome Sterling, MacAndrews & Forbes, and Allianz to
our team, and to receive the continued support of Mid-Atlantic and Core
Capital," stated Keith Elliston, chairman, president, and CEO of Viaken
Systems. "Viaken has established its position as the total solution provider
to the biotech and pharmaceutical industries, and is financially positioned to
lead the way in bioinformatics solution deployment and support."
"Viaken's end-to-end informatics solution model will have a significant
impact on the future of drug discovery," said Michael Bronfein, managing
general partner at Sterling Ventures. "The Viaken platform provides customers
with accelerated access to state-of-the-art bioinformatics solutions, with
greatly reduced implementation risk. Their experienced management team and
key industry alliances and partnerships have positioned them to provide the
biotech and pharmaceutical markets with top-level informatics solutions to
meet the mission-critical needs of research and development departments."
This second round of funding will help fund the company's expansion of its
sales and marketing efforts and its professional services activities, and
further invest in its developing data products business. The Viaken offering
includes secure managed services, domain expert professional services,
productized solutions for bioinformatics, integrated data products, and
collaborative research.
The Viaken end-to-end approach enables it to serve state-of-the-art
bioinformatics solutions not only to top tier pharmaceutical companies, but
also to the small and midsize biotechnology and pharmaceutical customer. The
integrated solutions methodology ensures that the customer has a complete
solution to fulfill their bioinformatics needs, allowing them to concentrate
on their key competitive advantage -- their science.
"This round of financing represents an important step in the growth of the
company," said Tom Smith, Viaken director and general partner of Mid-Atlantic
Venture Funds. "To raise funds in a challenging economic environment from a
quality group of investors is validation of the company's strategy. Biotech
and pharmaceutical companies are in need of solutions to help them stay
competitive in the market. Viaken's total solutions strategy enables
companies of all sizes to rapidly deploy quality bioinformatics solutions to
speed the drug discovery process."
"Viaken is a company with a very experienced and expert management team,
and has built a strong basis for rapid growth," emphasized Mark Levine,
managing director of Core Capital. "This round of financing from such a well-
respected syndicate of investors is proof of the strong business strategy that
Viaken has put in place. The Viaken solutions model is filling the void in
the market for bioinformatics services, as a partner for life science
companies."
About Sterling Venture Partners
Sterling Venture Partners is a venture capital fund investing in early-
stage companies in the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest. Sterling's areas of focus
are telecommunications, enterprise software, healthcare technology and
education. With substantial investment and operating experience, the fund's
principals provide critical resources to help entrepreneurs and their
companies realize their full potential. Sterling Venture Partners has offices
in Baltimore and Chicago and is affiliated with Sterling Capital, Ltd., a
private equity firm founded in 1983. For more information on Sterling Venture
Partners, visit http://www.sterlingcap.com .
About Core Capital Partners
Core Capital Partners, LP. is a $160 million fund headquartered in
Washington, D.C., which provides both venture and growth capital to technology
companies throughout the Mid-Atlantic region. For more information on Core,
please visit the website: http://www.core-capital.com .
About Mid-Atlantic Venture Funds
For over 15 years, Mid-Atlantic Venture Funds has been a leading provider
of early stage equity capital to emerging technology companies in the Mid-
Atlantic region. Partners Fred Beste, Glen Bressner, Marc Benson and Tom
Smith manage the firm's investment activities from offices in Bethlehem, PA
and Reston, VA.
About Viaken
Viaken Systems is the end-to-end bioinformatics solutions provider,
offering enabling solutions for biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and
agricultural research and development. Viaken provides a range of
bioinformatics solutions including hosting and managed services, strategic
design and implementation services, integrated data products, collaborative
research, and technical and scientific user support and training to its
customers in the life sciences. The company has developed a secure optimized
hosting platform called the Viaken Informatics Environment that provides its
customers with access to scalable informatics platforms customizable to their
specific needs, and a line of productized solutions -- the Viaken Discovery
System series. For more information on Viaken, visit http://www.viaken.com .
Viaken is a trademark of Viaken Systems Inc. All other trademarks
mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners.
SOURCE Viaken Systems Inc.
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Related links:
http://www.viaken.com
http://www.core-capital.com http://www.sterlingcap.com
CONTACT:
Karen Higgins of TMP Worldwide, 610-251-6880,
or karen.higgins@tmp.com, for Viaken Systems Inc.
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