Long Island Technology Briefs: November 9, 2007

Long Island Business News, Nov 9, 2007 by Alison Snyder

Modest start, big goals for LIFT's new startup fund

The Long Island Forum for Technology is launching a "seed" stage investment fund geared to "relight the fires of innovation" on Long Island, according to President Ken Morrelly.

The fund will provide capital to help startup tech firms grow from business plan to viable company. About $250,000 in state money will help kick off the venture, which will look to give a leg up to about 20 startups; LIFT will attempt to raise another $750,000, Morrelly said, all with an eye on the larger prize of stimulating Long Island's economic development.

Citing a recent Long Island Index survey that suggested innovation was "drying up on Long Island," Morrelly said the LIFT investment fund is determined to assist technology-related businesses "in their formative stages."

In exchange for partial ownership of the startup company, the investment fund will provide up to $200,000 for startups that are required to match the fund's investment with funding from other sources. The fund is searching exclusively for opportunities to stimulate Long Island economic development, Morrelly noted.

LIFT has reached out to 14 potential investors - including venture capitalists, banks, credit unions, industrial development agencies and nonprofits - for investments of between $100,000 and $250,000. It plans to reach out to 25 more in the next few weeks, leading up to a Dec. 7 meeting at Farmingdale State University with the New York State Foundation for Science, Technology & Innovation - which is providing the initial $250,000 through its Small Business Investment Fund.

A LIFT letter to potential investors considers it "a real possibility" that an investment in the new fund will garner a "reasonable and significant" return.

The fund has yet to be named. Once LIFT has identified enough willing investors, the organization will determine the fund's exact nature - and name.

Morrelly said fund money will be available to biosciences, aerospace and software companies, as long as they incorporate technology. Once the funds are committed to companies, the LIFT fund will reload for another round, he said, and continue investing in startups indefinitely.

Morrelly said he hopes to grow the fund to the $3 million range, and over time looks forward to helping create "tens of companies" and thousands of jobs on Long Island.

Island firms crack Deloitte's 'Fast 500'

Six Long Island companies have made the Deloitte and Touche USA "Fast 500" list, which ranks technology, media and telecom companies nationwide by percentage revenue growth from 2002 to 2006.

According to Deloitte, technological or intellectual property must make up a significant portion of the operating revenue of a company in the Fast 500, and those companies must commit a large portion of that revenue to technology research and development. The companies' first-year operating revenues must be more than $50,000, and their current-year operating revenues must be more than $5 million.

Long Island companies making Deloitte's list include Rockville Centre-based Didit (12), a search engine marketing agency; Farmingdale-based Juma Technologies (62), a communications company; Melville-based OSI Pharmaceuticals (103); Lake Success-based DealerTrack Holdings (123), a software company; and Mineola-based FatWire Software (301).

Didit's finish was particularly high for such a relatively unknown company, according to Deloitte spokesman Richard Shippee.

New math fonts a matter of time

The American Institute of Physics' publishing center in Melville is saving math types a bunch of time.

The center announced that it was part of a team that released a beta version of mathematical and scientific fonts. Before now, the institute said, publishers had to collect symbols from a variety of fonts - a time-consuming effort. Now, with documents posted to a Web site using the Scientific and Technical Information Exchange fonts, the correct symbols will automatically appear.

The 10-year, $1 million STIX project was a collaboration of the American Institute of Physics and five other publishers, who all contributed to the funding, design and management of the project.