Fundraising Bootcamp. Daniel Raftery, a Purdue University professor and founder of MatrixBio, spoke to us from the “veteran’s” perspective of having taken his company through the first bootcamp and then to potential investors. He mentioned when we interviewed him that his company was expecting to receive a seed round in October, and by the looks of this report on Inside Indiana Business, they’ve received the funds and have finally gotten around to a press release.I’d be surprised if this was the first company out of Purdue’s Discovery Park to receive financing, but MatrixBio is still nonetheless a poster child for what Purdue is trying to accomplish in turning its research into commercial successes. The Fundraising Bootcamp is merely one of a number of programs put into place to try and systemize entrepreneurship and new company creation. Would MatrixBio still have received funding even if it hadn’t gone through the bootcamp? I’m guessing yes, since the research and the innovation seem strong, and the market for early cancer diagnostics is unquestionably large enough to qualify MatrixBio as a high-potential venture (they plan to focus first on breast cancer but the technology has other applications).
So great ideas will always get funded, but to my last post, it’s the companies with a good idea but a murky business plan that will benefit most from programs like Purdue is sponsoring, and it’s the success of these companies that will ultimately move the needle for entrepreneurship in Indiana.
