Category: San Antonio (Page 13 of 62)

A San Antonio medical device company has filed papers with the Securities and Exchange Commission to raise $20 million under the federal government’s newly passed crowdfunding rules.

Under the new SEC Regulation A + rules, Aperion Biologics could raise up to $50 million. It checked the box on its registration statement for a Tier 2 filing, which includes “offering of securities of up to $50 million in a 12-month period with not more than $15 million in offers by selling security-holders that are affiliates of the issuer.”

The new SEC rules, part of the JOBS Act, seeks to simplify the process of raising money for smaller startup companies by streamlining the process and requiring less paperwork. It also allows companies to raise equity investment from non-accredited investors or the average investor.

“It does open up the public market to companies that previously couldn’t access these investments,” said David Cocke, Chief Financial Officer with Aperion.

“It’s a less burdensome process,” Cocke said. For example, it requires Aperion to provide two years of audited financial statements versus five years for a traditional Initial Public Offering.

WR Hambrecht + Co will conduct the offering. The number of shares and price range for the proposed offering has not yet been determined, according to a news release.

Aperion Biologics sent out a news release stating it is seeking $20 million to market its Z-Lig ACL Device in Europe and to begin clinical trials in the U.S.

Dr. Kevin Stone founded Aperion Biologics in 1996 under a different name and he created the Z-Lig ACL device in 2008 in San Francisco. The company moved to San Antonio in 2009. The Z-Lig is a patented engineered tendon device made from a pig that can be used by surgeons to replace a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament, known as an ACL, in the knee. For ACL reconstructive surgery today, surgeons currently use autografts made from the patient’s own tissues or an allograft, which is tissue from a cadaver.

The ACL repair and replacement market worldwide is a $2.5 billion market with 800,000 procedures taking place annually at a cost of about $2,500 per surgery, according to Aperion Biologics. The market is projected to grow at six to ten percent a year.

The Z-Lig is not yet available in the U.S. but it did receive Europe’s CE Mark approval for surgeries in Europe last year after a successful human clinical trial involving 66 patients there, said Daniel Lee, the company’s Chief Executive Officer.

In its filing, Aperion Biologics, which lists three full time employees and one part time employee, reported losses of $3.29 million and $5.45 million for fiscal 2014 and 2013 respectively and no revenue. For the first nine months of this year, the company reported $27,000 in revenue and $1.8 million in losses. It also has more than $40 million in liabilities.

The company plans to use the proceeds from the sale of its stock to repay some debts, compensate some of its employees, who have taken reduced salaries, and to market its Z-Lig product throughout Europe and Africa. It also wants to launch a clinical trial in the U.S., Lee said.

Aperion Biologics will be seeking a listing on the NASDAQ stock exchange, Cocke said.

Aperion Biologics has received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval to start clinical trials in ten different centers in the United States, Lee said.

“We may have a center here in San Antonio,” he said. “We’ll have centers in Texas.”

Overall, Aperion Biologics is a startup with an interesting technology in a space that is a high growth area over the next ten to twenty years, Lee said.

By LAURA LOREK
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

The battle to provide the highest speed broadband Internet connections in San Antonio has begun.

And the winners of the battle will be local consumers and businesses.

On Monday morning, AT&T announced U-Verse with AT&T GigaPower high speed Internet service will launch in San Antonio and surrounding communities on Sept. 28th. The company did not provide pricing or details of where the service will be available yet.

AT&T is not slowing down and neither are its customers, said Renee Flores, AT&T regional vice president of external affairs.

“In San Antonio, over the past three years, AT&T has invested over $475 million to drive enhancements for coverage, speed, performance and reliability for our consumers and our businesses,” Flores said.

AT&T, which used to be headquartered in San Antonio, has more than 3,700 employees here.

In an announcement at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, executives with AT&T, Mayor Ivy Taylor, City Manager Sheryl Sculley, San Antonio Chamber of Commerce President Richard Perez and members of the City Council stood on the stage.

“With the leadership of Mayor Taylor, City Manager Sculley, this City Council, San Antonio is a tremendous example, these people behind me, of what is possible when a business friendly economic environment meets local policies that encourage investment in technology,” Flores said.

AT&T’s GigaPower is a 100 percent fiber optic network that provides speeds up to 1 Gigabit per second. That kind of connectivity allows a person to download 25 songs in one second or an online HD movie in less than a minute.

“Speeds of up to 1 Gigabit per second can also have a real impact on our economic future,” Mayor Taylor said. “Super fast access to data and cloud based services aren’t a nice extra, they are now essential for anyone who wants to compete globally. And businesses seeking to relocate and expand look for state of the art technology such as AT&T’s 100 percent fiber optic GigaPower network.”

Last year, AT&T announced plans to roll out its ultra-fast Internet network and AT&T U-Verse TV service to San Antonio and 20 other major metropolitan areas. The company already provides GigaPower Internet service in Austin and it’s available in 15 cities nationwide.

Recently, Google announced plans to establish a 1 Gigabit Internet network in San Antonio. It is early on in the process of providing high speed Internet and is beginning construction on its network. But Google also provides 1 Gigabit Internet service to Austin.

With AT&T and Google providing 1 Gigabit networks in Austin and San Antonio, that makes this one of the most wired high-tech regions in the country. And that is going to drive economic growth in the high technology industry for both cities, according to city officials.

AT&T can bring a unique bundle to San Antonio around speed, mobility and value, said Larry Evans, AT&T South Texas vice president and general manager.

“Now you’re going to bring tech savvy jobs to San Antonio and they are going to have an all fiber network with high speeds,” Evans said.

Today, someone with a computer and a garage can take on a big corporation, Evans said. With speeds of 1 Gigabit per second it allows the small guys to compete, he said.

“We may see the next Uber come out of San Antonio,” Evans said.

Tech Bloc Cofounder David Heard said AT&T’s GigaPower network positions the city as a leading technology city. Tech Bloc is a community-based advocacy organization for the technology industry.

“It signifies to the world we will continue to be a major player in the high technology industry,” Heard said.

San Antonio strengths in the technology industry lie in Cloud-based services, CyberSecurity and Biotechnology, Heard said. AT&T’s high speed Internet network will help to attract new startups and existing businesses in those areas interested in doing cutting edge technology locally, he said.

“GigaPower is that next critical step we need to continue to grow as a city, as a tech city,” said Perez, President of the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce.

AT&T’s investment in ultra fast Internet takes San Antonio to the next level and enhances the quality of life in the community, Perez said.

In 2012, Ian Warshak, a software developer in San Antonio, came down with what he thought was a cold.

But within a few days he got really sick with a bacterial infection in his lungs. The infection spread and led to septic shock. He was put on life support and put into an induced coma because the infection was causing organ failure.

Warshak was not expected to live. But he woke up after eight days on life support and his body began to recover. During his sickness he had lost circulation in his fingers and feet. They had turned black. He had to have both lower legs and all of his fingers amputated a few months later.

But Warshak didn’t let the loss of his limbs get him down.

Since then, Warshak has coached his four-year-old son’s soccer team. He has been snow skiing four times. He went snorkeling and ziplining this summer on a cruise to Honduras. He’s training for a half marathon and he’s going to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro this winter.

For a few years Warshak couldn’t work. But now he’s back to doing freelance work for clients and he’s working with a few San Antonio startups.

“I feel like losing my fingers and my legs, not to minimize it, is just at this point, it’s an inconvenience,” Warshak said.

Warshak is part of a group called The Cloud Walkers, sponsored through the San Antonio Amputee Foundation. He’s one of 13 amputees who plan to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in Africa at 19,341 feet.

This weekend, the group travelled to Taos, New Mexico to do a practice hike on Wheeler Peak, a 13,100 foot mountain. The group meets monthly to do practice hikes around the country. They also train individually.

The day after Christmas, the group plans to leave San Antonio to travel to Tanzania, Africa. A medical support team and a film crew will accompany them. The film crew plans to create a documentary depicting their stories.

“The biggest challenge is going to be the altitude,” Warshak said. “So we’re taking it pretty slow.”

Another challenge is the ability of the prosthetic limbs to endure hiking five to seven miles a day for five or six days, Warshak said.

“We’re all going to have to take back up parts and back up legs,” he said. “Everyone wants to make it to the top. We don’t want to get carted down by the locals.”

The Cloud Walkers are raising money through the San Antonio Amputee Foundation, which is organizing the trip. They are looking for corporate sponsors. In addition, Warshak has raised $2,980 of a $6,000 goal through a Go Fund Me campaign.

Warshak said he was grateful and didn’t take life for granted before his illness. Now he seeks to live life to the fullest.

South by Southwest extended voting for its 2016 Panelpicker until midnight tonight.

To make the process even easier for you, here are seven San Antonio panels that may be of interest. Earlier, Silicon Hills News did a post on these 13 panels offered up by Austin entrepreneurs.

Just visit Panelpicker.sxsw.com and log in to vote.

The State of Crowdfunding: New Laws, Risk & Reward: Texas just approved crowdfunding and Mass Venture was the first crowdfunding portal approved under the new state regulations. This panel features Nathan Roach with San Antonio-based MassVenture, R.C. Rondero de Mosier with MWR Legal, David Neff of PricewaterhouseCooper and Andrea Kalmans with Lontra Ventures.

Multicultural Blogger and Content Creator Meet Up: Melanie Mendez-Gonzales, a San Antonio blogger who pens the Que Means What Blog, is organizing this meetup to talk about the power and influence of a multicultural audience and how to reach them and what social media tools work best.

Be Helpful: the Strategy for Social Success: this panel features San Antonio-based Rackspace employees Garrett Heath, Elizabeth Jurewicz and Frank Cerda discussing how a strategy focused on being helpful helps a company succeed. Being helpful is the social media strategy for Rackspace.

Unfiltered-Distilling Down the Beverage Industry: thinking about starting up a beverage company? Then you might want to listen to a few entrepreneurs from San Antonio who have been there and done that. This panel discusses the “trials and tribulations” of the process. It features Ryan Salts with Break Fast & Launch, Manny Carral with Revolucion Coffee+Juice, Vera Deckard with San Antonio Brewing Co. and Boyan Kalusevic from Dorcol Distilling Co.

The New Age Trade School: Apply Within: this panel looks at alternative education and coding schools like San Antonio-based Codeup as a way for employees to gain skills needed in today’s marketplace. The panel features Peter French of FreeFlow Research, Michael Girdley with Codeup, Ravae Shaeffer with Transformation Central Texas T-STEM Center and Brittany Shamsky with LiftFund.

False Alarm: Periscope Really Helps Rights Holders: A discussion about the use of Periscope and Merikat at professional sporting events including discussions about copyright. The panel features Nick Velliquette and Ray Machuca with FloSports and Chris Wenk with the San Antonio Spurs.

Hacking Water Security: Cities at the Forefront: Water is a hot button topic in Texas and across the country. The drought in California and Texas has led many to focus on innovation in the water industry. This panel will talk about how cities are searching for new supplies of water and grappling with conservation and scarcity. The panel features Kevin Allison with Thomson Reuters, Jimmy Gomez with the State of California, Robert Rivard of The Rivard Report and Avital Dror-Ehre with Clever Water.