Press Release

Contact: Robert Caudle CED Public Relations Manager rcaudle@cednc.org

Phone: (919) 549-7500 ext. 107 FAX: (919) 549-7405 www.cednc.org

Six Companies Selected for CED’s Venture 2007

Final Application Deadline Slated for Feb. 23

January 31, 2007, Research Triangle Park, NC – The Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED) has selected six companies to present at Venture 2007, and encourages other interested companies to apply by February 23 for consideration in the final selection round.

Scheduled for April 23-25, 2007, at Washington Duke Inn & Golf Club in Durham, N.C., CED’s 24th annual Venture conference will showcase the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic’s top investment opportunities to hundreds of venture capitalists and financiers from throughout the United States.

The six companies recently selected to present at Venture 2007 include the following:

• CeNeRX (Cary, NC, www.cenerx.com) focuses on identifying and developing promising therapeutics to treat diseases related to neurotransmitters. The company’s therapeutic priorities include anxiety, bipolar disorder, dementia, depression, epilepsy, neuropathic pain, schizophrenia, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease.
• NContact Surgical (Morrisville, NC, www.ncontact.us) is developing a minimally invasive procedure to treat patients requiring tissue coagulation in order to improve and prolong quality of life.
• Near-Time (Chapel Hill, NC, www.near-time.com) has created a Web-based collaborative “wiki” platform that brings together members of any organization, using any system, running any browser.
• Neotropix, Inc. (Malvern, PA, www.neotropix.com) is a biotechnology company dedicated to the development and commercialization of virus-based therapeutics for the treatment of cancer and other diseases.
• Taproot Systems, Inc. (Morrisville, NC, www.taprootsystems.com) provides embedded software products and system integration services for the global mobile phone marketplace.
• Tengion (East Norriton, PA, www.tengion.com) is a leader in developing autologous neo-organs and tissues, such as bladders, that are derived from the patient’s own cells. Dr. Tony Atala, director of Wake Forest University’s Institute for Regenerative Medicine, is Tengion’s scientific founder. As a Venture 2007 “Showcase Company,” Tengion was specifically selected to highlight the strengths of the entire region.

These six companies will be among the 15-20 main stage presenting companies on April 25th at Venture 2007. On April 24th, prior to the main stage presentations, Venture 2007 will also feature more than 20 pre-seed angel deals and early stage startups that have yet to raise an institutional round of funding.

To ensure that the conference is showcasing the most current deals in the pipeline, CED will announce the final slate of early and main stage presenting companies several weeks before the conference.

“At Venture 2007, you can expect to see some of the freshest deals around,” said conference co-chair Mitch Mumma of Intersouth Partners. “Through a region-wide selection committee and extensive partnerships, Venture 2007 is scouring the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic with a focus on the best venture opportunities. Three sessions – the Angel Retreat, the Early Stage, and the Main Stage – offer presentations from the full continuum of the region’s innovation pipeline, from pre-seed to mezzanine rounds of funding.”

Conference co-chair Jeff Barber of PricewaterhouseCoopers said this year’s conference will offer a snapshot of the region’s cutting-edge innovations that are being commercialized into “backable” companies.

“As one of the largest and most well-established venture conferences in the country, CED’s Venture 2007 will showcase the best investment opportunities in North Carolina and other East Coast innovation centers,” said Barber. “We encourage emerging growth companies of all stages, from across the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic, to apply to present at this year’s conference.”

For more information on applying to present and to complete the online application, visit www.cednc.org/conferences/venture/2007/presenters/application_to_present/.

About CED: The Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED) is a private, non-profit organization formed in 1984 to identify, enable and promote high growth, high impact entrepreneurial companies and to accelerate the entrepreneurial culture of the Research Triangle and North Carolina. Headquartered in the Research Triangle with a divisional office in Wilmington, CED is the largest and oldest entrepreneurial support organization in the nation with more than 4,000 members representing over 1,100 entrepreneurial companies, financiers and professional firms. CED provides education, mentoring and capital formation resources to new and existing high-growth entrepreneurs through annual conferences, seminars, workshops and programs on entrepreneurial management and finance. www.cednc.org

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