Raising Funds: BillMyParents, Ortiva Wireless, and Organovo

[Corrected 11/3/11, 1:45 pm. See below.] A couple of tech fundings came through in recent regulatory filings, as well as a deal for Organovo, the San Diego medical device startup. Organovo’s scientific founder, Gabor Forgacs, was among the esteemed speakers at last week’s TedMed conference. Here are the details:

[Corrected to explain filing] Organovo, the San Diego startup developing “bio-printing” technology to grow kidneys and other vital organs, provided investment equity and securities valued at almost $3.5 million in a convertible debt exchange, according to CEO Keith Murphy, who sought to clarify a previous filing. The deal does not represent additional new funding, Murphy says. He told me in July that the company had previously raised just over $2 million from private investors. The company’s technology has been able to grow bio-engineered blood vessels.

After going through a succession of changes, BillMyParents, a San Diego Web-based startup, has raised $2.5 million in a planned $10 million round of equity and rights to acquire other securities, according to a regulatory filing. The company’s website shows that board member Mark Sandson stepped in as interim CEO earlier this year, replacing Jim Collas, the former Gateway computer executive who had founded the company several years ago as Socialwise. In June, the company changed its corporate name to BillMyParents and changed its over-the-counter ticker symbol to BMPI. Michael R. McCoy was named as chairman and CEO earlier this month. As we’ve reported previously, the company’s primary product is a prepaid (and reloadable) MasterCard that includes a range of parental controls.

San Diego’s Ortiva Wireless has raised $2 million in debt, rights, and securities that consist of promissory notes convertible into preferred stock, according to a regulatory filing. The company has not disclosed anything about the financing, and CEO Marc Zionts did not respond to an email query about the offering. Ortiva develops wireless video optimization and streaming hardware and software for wireless operators.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.