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VirtualScopics LLC plans to seek $5 million to $20 million in funding to build its technology platform and attract additional customers.
The University of Rochester spinoff this month expects to kick off the process, meeting with investors here and nationwide.
"The money will go towards biomarker development and funding research that we will do cooperatively with several major universities around the United States, including the University of Rochester," said Stuart Shapiro M.D., CEO of VirtuaIScopics. "It will go towards building our technology base, including more algorithm development, (and) go towards sales and marketing-basically to increase our core capacity for production."
Shapiro last July joined the company to expand its market presence and lead its growth.
VirtualScopics employs some 40 staffers at its Linden Oaks facility, up from 35 employees a few months ago. The firm plans to hire some 20 people by the end of 2005. Annual revenues are expected to reach $7 million to $12 million in 2005-2006, Shapiro said.
"They have a very good story to tell, the growth strategy they put in that company certainly warrants the capital," said Christopher O'Donnell, general partner at local venture capital firm Trillium Group LLC. "Certainly they couldn't finance it internally; very few companies ever could. So it makes sense that they are going out and raising capital ... I expect they should be successful."
VirtualScopics is the result of collaboration among UR's engineering and medical school researchers. The firm's technology can extract complex information from scans produced by ordinary computerized tomography and magnetic resonance imaging. The images can provide information on the progression of diseases such as osteoarthritis, cancer and multiple sclerosis.
"The company when it was founded had...