FUNDING
Two Irvine-based firms, Gen Z-targeted video-dating platform Noveil and diagnosis-based food delivery service Nutrible, each received $75,000 grants from economic development nonprofit Arch Grants.
Both companies made it to Arch Grants’ 2022 cohort from a pool of 500 applicants. The nonprofit awarded over $2 million to the 23 winning companies in its startups competition.
Noveil, founded this year, is an online dating system with video-based screening for users.
The funding will allow Noveil to further develop its platform and gain more user traction by expanding into more college campuses, Arch Grants Executive Director Gabe Angieri told the Business Journal.
Noveil founder Michael Allotey previously worked as an engineer at Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN). He earned his degree in computer and information sciences at University of California, Irvine.
Nutrible, founded in 2019, aims to supply users with diagnosis-based, safe-to-eat food as soon as they are discharged from hospitals, emergency departments and other healthcare settings, the company said. The $75,000 grant will enable Nutrible to gain more market traction, Angieri said, as the startup plans to expand its services across the country.
Nutrible founder and CEO Kwamane Liddell currently works as the Orange County regional director of operations of digital healthcare services company Optum Inc. He previously worked as a registered nurse Heartland Regional Medical Center in Illinois and as the administrative services manager at hospital and wellness center network Almeda Health System.
Anviron, a Newport Beach cancer treatment company, is raising $500,000 for the development of a pancreatic cancer drug.
About 75% of pancreatic cancer patients die within a year of diagnosis, according to Anviron founder and President Bradley Morrison.
Anviron has developed a means to inhibit the protein that triggers the proliferation of pancreatic cells. The company has completed mouse studies in which its drug outperformed the standard of care by dissolving pancreatic cancer tumors within two weeks. Now, Anviron is looking to commence a canine clinical trial, which, if successful, will result in “virtually automatic FDA conditional approvals,” Morrison said.
Anviron’s drug, ANV221, received orphan drug designation from the FDA “when we demonstrated superior performance over current chemotherapies in pancreatic mouse models,” Morrison told the Business Journal.
Morrison, who co-founded the company in 2020, currently works as the director of worldwide sales for the converted freighter program at Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA). He also serves as a board member of Yorba Linda medical equipment manufacturer MediPines Corp. Morrison previously worked as the director of business development at Santa Ana e-commerce company Arbitrel.
Sayenza Biosciences, an Orange-based medical equipment manufacturer, is looking to raise a $4 million seed round for its automated fat and stem cell processor.
Sayenza aims to streamline fat processing for cosmetic and regenerative medicine applications with a device that separates stem cells from fat in 15 minutes. Current fat processing methods take about two hours to complete and require careful attention from surgeons, which risk contamination, according to Sayenza founder and CEO Derek Banyard.
The resulting adipose-derived stem cell injectables from Sayenza’s technology will potentially be applicable to heart tissue, bone and nerve restoration, along with cosmetic enhancements.
By entering the cosmetics and regenerative medicine market, Sayenza has the potential to generate roughly $620 million in annual revenue by 2028, Banyard said.
The company, founded this year at the University of California, Irvine’s Wayfinder program, has raised about $125,000 to date. Banyard currently serves as the founder and executive director of the Arthur L. Garnes Society, a mentorship program for underrepresented minorities in plastic surgery, as well as the regenerative medicine subcommittee member of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. He previously co-founded Irvine medical device company Syntr Health Technologies Inc. and was a resident scholar at UCI Health.
PARTNERSHIPS
ID Supply Co., a Costa Mesa merchandise company, is teaming up with five-time NBA champion and onetime OC resident Dennis Rodman for an apparel line.
“I’m looking to bring the iconic fashion from the ’90s and early 2000s back in a big way and the guys at ID Supply Co. are helping me bring this vision to life,” Rodman said in a statement.
“His apparel design direction still replicates that attitude from the jumbo, in-your-face designs to the ’90s sports aesthetic that captivates generations and is very much on trend,” ID Supply CEO Brandon Ruddach said of Rodman in a statement.
The Rodman Apparel collection launched online last month and will be available in specialty retailers in the U.S. Canada, Europe and Australia in spring next year, the company said.
Ruddach founded ID Supply in 2016. He previously worked as the director of sales and marketing at Costa Mesa ad agency Seaside Visual.
LAUNCH
Captura Corp., a Pasadena-based carbon removal company, is beginning testing in the California Institute of Technology Kerkhoff Marine Lab in Newport Beach.
The company, whose technology originated at Caltech, is partnering with Southern California Gas Co. to deploy its carbon removal initiative that uses renewable energy and ocean water to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide. Captura aims to remove millions of tons of carbon dioxide from the air to help California more quickly achieve its climate goals, the company said. The state’s recent climate proposal issued by Gov. Gavin Newsom sets a carbon removal target of 20 million metric tons by 2030.
The company’s process removes a “measurable stream of carbon dioxide from the ocean,” Captura CEO Steve Oldham said in a statement. “We then return that decarbonized water back into the ocean, which then absorbs the same quantity of carbon dioxide from the air. The carbon dioxide stream we produce can then be permanently sequestered or utilized in products.”
Captura, founded last year, has raised $1 million to date. The funding comes from a grant awarded by Elon Musk’s Musk Foundation and from tech development nonprofit XPrize.
Oldham, the company’s CEO, previously led clean energy company Carbon Engineering Ltd.
He also served as the general manager of satellite missions and robotics and space mission company MDA.
