14 April 2010

“Verdant Ventures will enable Innovaro clients to have access to capital that we believe will help facilitate the transfer of technologies that have not yet attained a certain milestone or level of development maturity. The underlying goal of this relationship is to further increase our clients’ commercialisation success rates as well as increase the frequency of technology licensing for the Company,” states Doug Schaedler, CEO of Innovaro.

“The opportunity to leverage the extensive resources and university relationships held by Innovaro will enable Verdant Ventures Advisors to source exciting cutting edge technologies which will one day, I hope, improve the human condition”, said John Micek, an Innovaro board member, managing partner of Verdant Ventures and managing director of Silicon Prairie Partners.

Verdant Ventures will take advantage of Innovaro’s breadth and depth of contacts and networks with university technology transfer offices, medical centers, federal research laboratories and corporations.

Additional members of the Verdant Ventures management and advisory team will include:

• Greg Bailey, managing partner, Palantir Group, Inc, a London-based biotech merchant bank
• Mark Berset, CEO of Comegys Insurance, a family owned agency recognised as one of the largest independent insurance agencies in the US, and an Innovaro Board member
• John Bowmer, former Chairman, chief executive of Adecco SA, the world’s biggest staffing company, and named 2005 London Business School Alumnus of the Year. He is now Chairman and an investor in several private and public companies
• Lara Druyan, general partner at Allegis Capital, a member of the Chicago Science Group for the University of Chicago, and named as one of the ‘2009 Women of influence in Silicon Valley’
• Jim Ellison is managing partner at Compass Capital, a boutique merchant banking and advisory firm serving privately held emerging companies in IT and life sciences, and managing director at Pearl Street Capital Group, a leading asset management firm that creates and manages private equity fund investment vehicles
• Karen LeVert, CEO and founder of Southeast TechInventures (STI), a research triangle-based technology accelerator focused on developing and transitioning the most promising technologies from university labs to commercial applications
• Michael Lyons, consulting associate professor at Stanford University School of Engineering, and started numerous government lab-based technology spinouts
• Masaru Sakamoto, Silicon Valley based international business consultant and formerly senior executive for business development and equity investments for NEC USA subsidiaries and NEC Corporation