Connect Launches CapitalMatch Program, Enrolls First Four Startups

Connect nonprofit San Diego (Connect photo used with permission)

Connect, San Diego’s nonprofit group for technology innovation, said it has enrolled four local startups in its new CapitalMatch program, which is intended to develop relationships between investment-ready companies and investors throughout the country.

Connect identified the startups as:

—Fragmob is a mobile software developer that has created a Web platform for supporting independent sales reps for multi-level marketing companies like Utah’s LifeVantage. Fragmob raised $3.2 million in convertible debt funding in October to fuel its growth and develop additional software-based products and services. Fragmob says its automated software takes sales reps through programs for effective direct selling practices. The company wants to raise additional funding for working capital as Fragmob builds its team.

—GRI Bio is a drug development company using natural killer T cells to treat inflammatory diseases. The company’s lead drug candidate is in a mid-stage clinical trial for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis. The company is seeking investor funding to support a proof-of-concept trial that would completed in late 2017.

—Guru is creating apps that enable a museum to turn visitors’ smartphones into interactive tour guides that works by using beacon technology. The company is in the process of raising $500,000.

—Jaan Biotherapeutics is a life sciences company developing a microRNA-based compound to activate an endogenous process to regenerate damaged heart muscle following a heart attack. The initial focus is on post heart attack therapy, but Jaan says its approach could be applied in other heart diseases where muscle regeneration is required. The startup is seeking funding to advance new treatments for heart disease.

In a related move, Connect rolled out a CapitalMatch education seminar in February for entrepreneurs and angel investors to learn more about the fundamentals of early stage funding deals. Shawn Richardson, senior director of Match Programs at Connect, said at the time the all-day seminar was a first in a series of education classes for entrepreneurs and their mentors. She described the fundraising track at the time as “a natural next step for us as we work to identify and create ways to support the fundraising efforts of startups in San Diego.”

With the CapitalMatch program, Richardson said the goal is to develop an investor network for San Diego startups, and “work to understand their investment interests and then introduce them to the vetted San Diego companies that meet their investment criteria.

Connect nonprofit for technology and entrepreneurship
Working on entrepreneurship at Connect

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.