S2

MDA reports that S2 Corp (Bozeman, MT) got a multimillion-dollar MDA SBIR Phase III contract for its radar signal processor plus development of the original optical memory materials developed with SBIR by Scientific Materials Corp. S2 is a spin-off of SMC after SMC was acquired by FLIR. S2's website makes the bodacious claim that Bozeman is quickly becoming one of the largest technology centers in the world even though it has posted no company news since Jan 05.

Salix Pharmaceuticals (Morrisville, NC)

Salix Pharaceuticals (Morrisville, NC; one SBIR) investors were expecting a challenging 2008 after federal regulators in December approved generic copies of the company's best-selling drug. [Now], they found out that the year also will be unprofitable. [Raleigh News&Observer, Feb 1] Salix stock trades at a third of its high three years ago.

Salix Pharmaceuticals down 16% [Dec 31, 07] after it submitted an application to the FDA for marketing approval for granulated mesalamine, an anti-ulcer drug. [Forbes] amid news of generic competition.

Salix Pharmaceuticals down 22% [Dec 28, 07]

Salix Pharma up 14% on news of the company's exclusive rights to co-promote the drug Colazal once it is approved by the FDA

Salix Pharmaceuticals (Morrisville, NC; one Phase 1 SBIR) up 10% when second-quarter revenue and profit rose as the company sold more drugs to treat gastrointenstinal diseases. [Raleigh News & Observer, Aug 2, 07]  

SDL Inc (San Jose, CA)

Cashing Out In the past twelve months, the two leading lights of SDL have cashed out a pile of their chips. R&D guru Dave Welch sold $42M of shares and CEO Don Scifres sold $196M.

Meanwhile, one broker house enthused over SDL Highlights..· Outstanding EPS On Higher Gross Margins And Strong Sales. SDL reported Q3 revenues up 33% sequentially to $147M, exceeding our $140M estimate. EPS beat our estimate by a wider margin due to higher-than-expected gross margins. · Raising Q4 And 2001 Estimates Significantly. With SDL’s Q3 performance, we are now looking for $1B in FY01 revenues, up from $805 million, and EPS of $2.53, up from $1.91. Reiterate Strong Buy. We continue to believe that SDL’s proposed merger with JDS Uniphase (#) will be approved and will close by the end of the December quarter. SDLI shares are currently trading at an 18% discount to the acquisition price based on the 3.8:1 exchange ratio. Moreover, even considering the unlikely scenario of the deal falling through, we believe SDLI shares are attractive on a stand alone basis given the robust fundamental outlook and the high likelihood of another bidder emerging.

We are reiterating our Strong Buy rating on the shares of leading optical component pure-play SDL after the company reported 3Q EPS of $0.45, $0.07 ahead of our expectations. Pro forma revenue was up about 20% sequentially to $146.5M, $6.5M ahead of our expectations. The drivers of this upside were continued strength in terrestrial and undersea 980nm sales as well as ramping sales of new products related to a string of successful acquisitions including IOC, Veritech, Queensgate and PIRI.

SDL is a horseman. The demand for the company's lasers increases as more channels of light are multiplexed within a strand of fiber. They have become just a phenomenal company in the past year with obscene sequential revenue growth. Estimate was $0.38; they did $0.45. Revenue growth was up 33% sequentially, 208% year-over-year. [L Siracusano, Individual Investor, Oct 19]

Fortune has a focus piece on how JDS Uniphase is the premier bandwidth company in a world where bandwidth is exploding. Potential SBIR proposers in photonics should be able to recite and relate to the JDS story.

Meanwhile SDL soared 19% to even higher heights after reporting record profits of $27M on revenue of $110M for the quarter. Now it trades at only 690 times earnings and a $32B market cap. JDS is buying it for $41B if the government anti-monopolists allow such concentration of photonics.

More SDL High
(Jun 16) SDL climbed to an all-time high at a market cap of $12.3B (and a 500+ PE ratio) on news that it would supply high speed optical modulators to Siemens at least thorugh 2001. In the battle for optical communications, SDL is an arms merchant that wins with all warriors who will build-out (a vogue industry term) bandwidth, bandwidth, and more bandwidth. Modulators wink on and off to add the information to the laser beam shooting down the fiber. SDL is 12 times its year ago price.

Speculation, Rumor, Industry Talk says Corning would buy SDL. Corning has spent $7B recently to push to the forefront of the optical-fiber business and is now expected to spend yet more. After all it is making more money than even Wall Street expects. So-called industry observers expect Corning to acquire optical-parts rival SDL just to beat JDS Uniphase on a like buying spree. Both Corning and SDL say "no comment" to questions. [facts from thestreet.com, Jun 13] The sharks are all around and even eating each other as this industry grows while finding how far it can go and who will dominate. One benficiary of all the buyouts has been BMDO's SBIR reputation. BMDO got fed several companies' early need for infant capital: SDL, CoreTek, NZ Applied Technologies, Intellisense, E-Tek Dynamics. Once company whose CEO once boasted he could compete with SDL still languishes at its market cap of the early 80s - Spire.

Although the stock price is up more than 1800% since we first wrote about this company, we still like the company's prospects. We believe that the exponential growth of the information age will continue to cause bottlenecks on the existing networks. SDL has the products to ease the pain. As demand for its products continue to heats up, investors should expect the shares to soar. [Individual Investor, June 2]

Stunned, Says Individual Investor. Last week fiber-optics component maker SDL stunned analysts with a simply phenomenal quarter, blowing out top- and bottom-line estimates. Pro forma revenue increased nearly 92% to $72M million in the quarter, with pro forma net income coming in at $17M, or $0.22 per share, six cents above consensus estimates. Revenue from fiber-optic communications products increased 35% over the fourth quarter, and by 163% over the prior year quarter. SDL, and all the other fiber-optics stocks that II favors, took a dive yesterday in a soggy NASDAQ day.

Dave Smith, a co-manager at Loomis Sayles' Global Technology, Small Cap Growth and Aggressive Growth [mutual] funds, is also nibbling away at a few optics companies. ... he's focused on a smaller outfit called SDL Inc., which makes "active" optical networking components. "Demand for these components continues to be strong, not just in the U.S. but all the world," says Smith. SDL reports earnings next week, and Smith thinks it will beat expectations. For fiscal 2000, which ends in December, analysts expect the company to earn 79 cents; in fiscal 2001 the consensus estimate is $1.13. This rapid earnings growth, combined with sharp revenue gains, will eventually propel the stock upward again, he predicts. Late Friday SDL was changing hands for $143 per share, down sharply from its 52-week high of $244.75 [Barron's, Apr 17]

Though probabilities favor the stock to outperform the year-ahead market, investors willing to accept above-average risk may be in for a wild ride., says Value Line March 3 in a special coverage of SDL. VL ranks SDL Number 1 (of 5 ranks) for likely price rise and claims it has half the market for undersea 980mm pump chips and could up that to 80% by the end of this year. VL also repeats the rumor of JDS Uniphase 's buying SDL.

Consistent with its meteoric rise to $7B market cap, SDL has the largest display at the bustling oversubscribed Exhibit Hall at Photonics West in SDL's home town of San Jose. Only Sony competes in gaudiness of display in a giant hall full of things that flash and wink.Also present with good traffic flow is DOD's SBIR which ran out of handout material and souvenirs.

SDL was up another 6% yesterday (Dec 20) to 260 times earnings and a $6B market cap. Did CEO Don Scifres in his wildest dreams in 1992 when he got his first BMDO SBIR foresee such a development seven years later? Could you see such a thing for your company? You may need a longer time horizon since SDL was already a going enterprise of 200 when it formed from the joint venture it had been for ten years or so.

Market Action SDL (San Jose, CA) closed above $100, up 6%, the first SBIR company to do so. Ortel (Alhambra, CA) followed last week's up action with another 18% rise. ATMI (Danbury, CT) sank another 16% on fear of soggy earnings; it's now off 40% from its high of two weeks ago. Vixel (Bothell, WA) was up 7% in its post-IPO volatility.

SDL 21x Its Low (Aug 27) Former SBIR company SDL Inc (San Jose, CA) shot up another 14% yesterday to a $2.8B market cap which is 21 times its low for the last twelve months. Which makes CEO Don Scifres a very rich man. Said Reuters about Cisco's purchase of two companies The Cisco deal also demonstrates the value of firms working in the fiber-optic market, analysts said. ``It raises the bar and lifts the floor on the valuation of these companies,'' said one market watcher who declined to be named. ``It's hot. This is as hot as it gets,'' said an analyst who asked not to be named. ``The stock is trading at more than 100 times this year's earnings expectations.'' Other players in the fiber-optic market also made major gains on Thursday trade, including E-Tek Dynamics up $6-1/2 to $59-5/8, and SDL Inc. ``All the components companies are up,'' said Patrick Houghton, analyst at Sutro & Co. in San Francisco. If you are doing SBIR proposals to a real SBIR agency, not one that just does what it would do anyway without SBIR, outline the implications of Cisco's move in your analysis of the future of your technology. Show that you understand your world.

SDL Buys Polaroid Well, not the whole company. SBIR graduate SDL Inc (San Jose, CA) bought Polaroid's fiber laser business for $5M. Over the past seven years, the two companies have jointly developed fiber laser technology and shared in the production of systems for thermal printing and data storage markets. It is a non-surprise result of the business wherein one Polaroid department supplied SDL which manufactured the fiber laser systems and then sold them back to Polaroid. One management roof now, although Polaroid's part stays in MA. SDL will still sell fiber laser subsystems to Polaroid's Graphic Imaging Div. Although PRD was one of the high-multiple big growth stocks of the 60s, SDL with its close at 100 Friday has a 50% higher market cap than PRD - $1340M v. $932M. Now, just around the corner from PRD is a proud (it says) competitor of SDL in the laser diode business - Spire - whose market cap is still around the $10M it was when it got its first SBIR in 1984 and has had $30M since.Still the CEO shows up to testify what a great program SBIR is.

SDL Zooms to 90
(Apr 1) SDL reached $90/ share yesterday as the Dow-Jones frolicked in the 10,000 pool. That's 10 times its low of six months ago and is a market cap of $1300M. A lot for an SBIR-supported firm. SDL got SBIR support from BMDO and others when it transitioned in 1991 to an independent firm from being a joint venture of Spectra-Physics and Xerox. It soon went public and outgrew SBIR.

SDL Rockets Again After reporting a $4M profit for the quarter,SDL (San Jose, CA) shot up another 24% yesterday to a market cap of $840M. That's now six times its price a year ago. SDL had some SBIR in its early days, although it started SBIR life with 200 employees when it became eligible in 1991. CEO Don Scifres looked executive at Photonics West in January. In contract, Spire (Bedford, MA) which sees itself as a competitor to SDL, has the same market cap it had in the mid-80s when it got tons of SBIR.

SDL Gets Swiss Business
(Nov 11) SDL (San Jose, CA) said that Ismeca SA, Le Chaux de Fonds, Switzerland, has named SDL as its exclusive supplier of laser marking equipment to be integrated onto its standard semiconductor package handling equipment. Ismeca SA is the leading manufacturer of package handling equipment in the discrete semiconductor component marketplace with an estimated 40 percent market share worldwide. [PRNewswire, Nov 10]

Two Make Big Profits
(Nov 2) SDL (San Jose, CA) shares jumped 46% on higher-than-expected quarter's earnings of $3., up 26% from the year-ago quarter. SDL shares have now have nearly tripled their low in mid-summer. Meanwhile, Cree Research (Durham, NC) has also nearly tripled its summer low on news of $17M new Asian business and a doubling of quarterly profits.

SDL Sinks All those folks who waited for SDL (San Jose, CA) to fall further last Christmas have another chance. It's back to year opening levels at 14-15 (down 15% yesterday) from its highs in the high twenties despite a "Strong Buy" recommendation by a big broker in August. The reason: one estimator cut earnings estimates by 14% for 1998 and 5% for 1999. That's good news and bad. Good because an SBIR firm is actually making real money from something other than 6% of SBIR contracts. SDL is one of the few companies to outgrow SBIR. The others have a variety of excuses.

SDL Rockets (Aug 20) Shares of SDL (San Jose, CA) rocketed 19% to 23+ after CIBC Oppenheimer initiated coverage of the company with a strong buy rating. Analyst Jungjohann said the company has high-growth opportunities in the optoelectronics market. SDL makes optoelectronic integrated circuits, semiconductor lasars and fiber-optic related products. The same kind of strong buy rocketed ATMI last year before the Asian contagion infected ATMI's prospects. SDL had risen from 14 to the mid-20s before the July market swoon. SDL had a healthy chunk of SBIR in the years since it became eligible in 1991 and before it went public in 1995 and then outgrew SBIR last year. SBIR aficionados mght compare SDL's market performance with anaother SBIR user in the same industry - Spire (Bedford, MA) which has had tens of millions of SBIRand still has the same market cap it had in 1985.

SDL $2.2M Profit
(May 1) SDL (San Jose, CA) made $2.7M for the quarter on 20% higher revenues of $25M, a nice number in line with the doubling of its stock price since October. 

SDL Up Again
(Feb 11) From $14 on January 1 to $23 yesterday, up 64%. Compare with Spire who competes with SDL on laser diodes. Spire is at the same $15 level after having been in the twenties in the early fall. One difference is the steady profits rolling out of SDL (except for the one time settlement of a fight) and the irregular profits at Spire. Both used SBIR; SDL for five years and Spire for 15 years. Both started using SBIR at nearly the same employment level; SDL outgrew SBIR last year; Spire has about the same employees as 1983. If you were judging SBIR, what would you do when the next Spire proposal for laser diodes hit your desk?

SDL Makes A Profit (Feb 5) SDL back to profitable. After its one-time giant loss to settle a long-standing claim, SDL (San Jose, CA) made $1.8M for the quarter on $24M sales. Maybe that explains the ever bigger booth at Photonics West. Emcore swallowed a $29M one-time charge and about broke even from recurring business. (Note: one-time losses are often claimed.) The Street liked the picture, lifting SDL 15% yesterday.

SDL Earns $2.5M SDL Inc (San Jose, CA) earned $2.5M on $24M sales for the quarter. CEO Don Scifres attributed the profit to more front-end wafer manufacturing capacity.

SDL Sells Lasers to Corning (Jul 22) SDL Inc. (San Jose, CA) signed a "multi-million-dollar" contract to supply Corning, the glass company, with fiber-coupled pump modules for use in optical fiber amplifier modules. The innumerate DJ news story implies a competitive market struggle. Corning is the glass company.

SDL Unveils Products (Jul 23) SDL Inc. (San Jose, CA) unveiled two visible semiconductor laser products for the data-storage and cancer-therapy markets. A 30 mW 650 nm single mode laser, aimed at high density optical data storage, has enough power for enabling both writing and reading data at high digital video disk storage densities. The second product is a 3W fiber coupled 665 nm laser used in a new method of cancer treatment, photodynamic therapy, relies on a light sensitive chemical ingested by a patient that then accumulates in the tumor.[DowJones Jul22] For the story of photodynamic therapy read "A New Light on Cancer", MIT Technology Review, A/S97.

Only a Million Profit
(Jul 15) SDL Inc sadly estimated this quarter's profits at only $1M after a $30M charge for settling the patent ownership dispute with ex-parent Spectra-Physics. Other SBIR companies should try to have such problems.

Got a good idea for a new product? Keep thinking, it often takes more than one. On average, it took seven ideas to generate a new commercial product in 1995, down from 11 ideas in 1990, says the Product Development and Management Association. The Wall Street Journal, May 1, 97. You must keep thinking because as Nathan Myhrvold says, No matter how good your product, you are only 18 months away from failure.

SDL's Profits Down (Apr 18) Like the dog that misquotes Shakespeare, SDL's profits were down for the quarter to only a half-million. But CEO Don Scifres made the usual CEO noises. He has 100 patents, was a research fellow at Xerox PARC, and he still lets magazines (Photonics Spectra, Apr97) publish his picture with fully brown hair. It was not brown at Photonics West 97 where both Don and VP Dave Welch were smiling. Someone smiling always looks younger. Don Scifres has brought SDL into self-ownership, an IPO and a secondary, more than doubled employment since 1991 birth as an independent company (now right out of SBIR eligibility) with sales over $80M. The help from SBIR (at least from BMDO) was for long range, high technical risk innovations. Yes, several were declined for excessive ordinariness. But now the self-funded R&D will have to do both long and short range development. That's what it means to graduate from SBIR 

SDL Finds A Significant Other (Mar24) SDL Inc (San Jose,CA) announced a significant contract to supply Lucent Technologies (ne Bell labs) with 980 nm fiber-coupled pump modules for optical fiber amplifiers. SDL's largest single order for commercial telco market. 

SDL Beats Rockwell in MOCVD Claim (Mar 3) A federal court said Bah to Rockwell's claim that SDL Inc (San Jose, CA) infringed Rockwell's MOCVD patent. Rockwell several years ago made a sweeping claim to have invented MOCVD for opto-electronic devices, a practically universal process. SDL CEO Don Scifres said he liked the decision. (Why do newswires report such blather and why do companies say such obvious banalities?) [Metal-Organic-Chemical-Vapor-Deposition]

Revenue and Profits Soar at SDL (Jan 31) For the year sales were up by half to $82M and profits were $7M. Stock traders liked the news and jacked the price up 7% to $26 which gives SDL a market cap of $350M. CEO Don Scifres made the usual anodyne noises. Companies like SDL give SBIR a good name and cancel the bleating of a lot of gimme-a-handout sheep. Of course, not everyone believes: Insider DS Evans sold $3.6M of stock in December, 74% of holding, says WSJ, Jan29. 

So Blue the Laser
SDL Inc (San Jose, CA) announced a blue laser at Photonics East. Air cooled, frequency doubled, 1-2 mW in 15-35 C. Price not yet determined (and therefore market not determinable either).. [Photonics Spectra Dec 96. It has some SBIR support. Maybe they'll bring it to Photonics West, Feb8-14 San Jose Convention Center. 

Cisco has a market capitalization of over $40 billion (much the same as General Motors) yet the firm has barely attracted the notice of the average computer user, much less the anti-trust authorities. The Economist, Dec 7, 96

SDL Revenue Up, Income Down
$19M (up38%) came through the door in the quarter but only $0.9M (down 41%) went into the earnings drawer. SDL Inc (San Jose, CA) is thus in an enviable position of being an SBIR company (but not for much longer) that has profit drops to moan about on Wall Street. Don Scifres, the personable (and now rich) CEO was dutifully upbeat about the results. (I wonder how SDLs's accountants deal with the skyrocketing market value of the land on North First St under SDL.) 

An Action Stock
It must have seemed like a photon torpedo game. From 28 the day before SDL Inc (San Jose, CA) sank as low as 15 before closing at 19, down 32%, the top percentage loser for the day on 3.9 million shares traded. It never traded above 22. The news: the firm said its revenues wouldn't be skyrocketing as analysts had predicted because of manufacturing problems. . Hardly seems fair treatment for so good an SBIR firm; SDL is one of the few SBIR firms who move smartly into production and growth. (Too many get hooked on easy SBIR once they're known by the government technical gurus.) SDL is an employee buy-out of a joint venture between Xerox and Spectra-Physics. It develops and sells laser communications products like laser diodes (for a version of photon torpedos) and reported healthy profits (by SBIR standards) for the last two quarters. Aug 96 

New SDL Pump SDL Inc (San Jose, CA) announced a new, higher power pump for lasers at 980 nm, 120 mW output from the same input formerly delivering 90 mW. With$24.6M revenue for its last quarter, SDL must be an early candidate for honor graduate from SBIR. 

SDL Profit SDL Inc (San Jose, CA) reported $2.4M quarterly profit and $4.6M for six months. That brings SDL's P-E ratio down to about 30, normal for a growth stock. Which also implies that SDL would soon graduate from SBIR, not that SDL was ever dependent on SBIR anyway. SDL makes laser diodes. 

Another $45M SDL Inc (San Jose, CA) raised another $45M in a public stock sale yesterday. That makes over $100 in three such sales since 1994. SDL got SBIR-qualified in 1991 by buying itself out from the Xerox-Spectra Physics joint venture. Since then it has nearly doubled, but not on SBIR money. It gets a few SBIRs for the new product ideas and then raises the public money for production (and for cashing out the original investors).

Sangamo Biosciences

Sangamo Biosciences down 12%  [Nov 12, 07] as a big investor sold some.

Sangamo BioSciences up 12% [Sep 18, 07] after the company showed data demonstrating that human CD4 T-cells can be made permanently resistant to HIV infection by treatment with zinc finger DNA-binding protein nucleases (ZFN(TM)) and preferentially survive and expand in an animal after HIV infection.

Charities Investing. Fed up with breakthroughs that fill journals rather than medicine chests, private foundations and charities that have traditionally funded academic scientists have started doing the once-unthinkable: writing checks for millions of dollars to for-profit companies. ...  Earlier this month, JDRF announced that it was giving $2 million to MacroGenics Inc., a Rockville, Md., biotech, for a phase-2/3 clinical trial of an antibody that might slow progression of type-1 diabetes. [Sharon Begley, Wall Street Journal, Jan 26, 07]  MacroGenics has had $2+M in SBIR. JDRF has also funded Sangamo BioSciences (Richmond, CA) $3M,  Transition Therapeutics (Toronto) , and TolerRx (Cambridge, MA). Sangamo has also had $2+M SBIR.

Sangamo BioSciences jumped 10% on news that it agreed with Dow AgroSciences on "multiple" research milestones in their collaboration to develop plant cell cultures. SBIR $2M over a decade. [Nov 22, 06]

SatCon Technology (Cambridge, MA)

SatCon Technology borrowed $10M to retire its existing convertible secured notes, [Mass High Tech, Nov 9]

SatCon Technology, an early and frequent consumer of SBIR,  reports plans to replace David Eisenhaure as SatCon's CEO ... No date or reason made public ... company executed a definitive agreement with RockPort Capital Partners and NGP Energy Technology Partners for a secured $10 million short-term debt financing, ... also reports executing a non-binding term sheet with RockPort and NGP ETP for an equity financing of $25 million of preferred stock and warrants, $10 million of which would be used to retire the new short-term debt. [Mass High Tech, Oct 22, 07]

SatCon down 18% [Jul 18, 07] after peddling $4.7M in warrants at a far reduced price from the original plan.

SatCon got a new for $2.8M for its PowerGate fuel cell inverters. [Jun 26, 07]

SatCon won another Phase 2 SBIR to add to its collection of more than thirty Phase 2s over two decades.

SatCon won $2.7M deal for the first stage of a $6.5M development of an energy storage and delivery of 8 megawatts for several seconds. [Mass High Tech, Dec 1]

SatCon gets more revenue from a $600K follow-on contract for optically isolated solid-state relays. Now if it could just make some obscene profits.

SatCon jumped 14% (back across the dollar barrier) on news of a wider quarterly loss. Hope spring eternal for profits from the $32M backlog. [Nov 16, 06]

SatCon jumped 14% back over the $1 threshold in its new home on the NASDAQ Capital Market. [Oct 06]

SatCon stock moved to minor league NASDAQ National Market where it no longer needs $50M market cap and a $5 minimum price. The 184 employees have plenty of business $33M in orders that somehow haven't produced the profit and stock trader optimism needed for the major league. (Sep 06)

SatCon asked for a NASDAQ hearing about pulling the trading plug. On Sept. 1, SatCon was notified that it failed to comply with the exchange's minimum market value requirements of $50 million over the course of 10 consecutive business days... Founded in 1985, SatCon Technology develops electronics and motors for the alternative energy, hybrid-electric vehicle, grid support, high reliability electronics, and advanced power technology markets. It operates facilities in Boston, Worcester, Marlborough, Maryland, and Ontario, Canada. SatCon employs 184 workers.  [Mass High Tech, Oct 6] And has a ton of SBIR money since the mid-1980s. SBIR, revenues, manufacturing all lead to dashed hopes and temporary jobs if they cannot turn a profit. Twenty years seems a long time to wait for steady profitability. When, if ever, should the government give up and divert its SBIR elsewhere? Or is SBIR an open-ended handout to any company smart enough to wangle a R&D government contract?

SatCon broke the buck, again, trading below $1 a share despite gobs of revenue and government contracts. [Sep 06]

SatCon will close its manufacturing facility in Worcester by the end of the year to streamline operations .... it also says orders have reached an all-time high of $33M, including more than $16M from SatCon's renewable energy products division. [Mass High Tech, Sep 20]

SatCon got a $1M order from FuelCell Energy to be used in development of fuel cells. Now if only SatCon could make a profit on all this business. Thta requires getting the cost of sweet technology down below the demand price.

Optimists Abound.  Another $12M from institutional investors for SatCon. Founded in 1985 and employing 184, SatCon makes electronics and motors for the alternative energy and advanced power technology markets. The company sells to both the private sectors and government agencies, including the U.S. Army and Navy corps. [Mass High Tech, Jul 20] Not even military sales for Iraq could turn the company profitable, having lost $50M over the last three years.  It has also had over 30 Phase 2 SBIRs over two decades.  The economics avoiders in the SBIR crowd could at least point to the 184 employees which far exceed the amount supportable by just SBIR and the oodles of private capital that has gone into SatCon. 

SatCon took a 20% nosedive after reporting another quarter of loss despite several new contracts. CEO David Eisenhaure made the required positive noises, I am pleased with the progress we are making towards transitioning into a products-oriented business, ... The steps we have taken to align our organization with our product and market initiatives will bring clarity and focus to our business.  [May 06]

SatCon got multiple purchase orders from four new customers for 13 commercial grade inverters equaling 2.3 megawatts (MW), including an order the company describes as one of the largest photovoltaic integrators in North America. [Mass High Tech, May 5]SatCon got a short term development sub-contract for an Army starter-generator. Mass High Tech says that SatCon's 170,000 square-foot facility located on Boston Harbor employs 225 people with company revenues of $36M last year. Earlier this week it announced a $1.1M NIST sub-contract for a second 2,200 kVA Rotary Uninterruptible Power Supply (RUPS).

Hot news in Mass High Tech - SatCon got a government contract.  Great, it's a Phase 1 SBIR, something SatCon has been getting for twenty years. Unlike most of the eastern Massachusetts SBIR firms, SatCon is one of the few SBIR firms in the non-life sciences that went public, but it's not one the even fewer firms that have made consistent profits and a rich ROI for its investors. If Congress ever really intended SBIR to be an economic engine, it put the wrong people in charge. [Jan 06]

SatCon's newest auditors also see it as a "going concern" which is the equivalent of a medical diagnosis of still capable of breathing. Its cash position was boosted by sale of its Ling divison as selling the family silver keeps the castle in groceries.

Doubters.  SatCon ranked # 5 on percentage increase in sextupling the short interest. [Sep 05]

SatCon took an upward blip when it announced shipment of components for  the hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) market as part of it strategy to make money in hybrid vehicles before it runs out of cash. [Aug 05]

SatCon won a $2.8M Army contract for power conversion control. [May 05]  So twenty years after winning its first SBIR, SatCon is still alive although also still looking to make any money and living proof that  "living dead" is a status that a start-up can keep for a long time on small government contracts. 

More money trouble at SatCon as it took resignations from its financial VP and a director on its audit committee.  Although its losses are eating up the capital being raised, On Jan. 14, the company said its independent auditor maintained a "going concern" opinion about SatCon Technology in the most recently filed Form 10-K. [Bhattiprolu Murti, Dow Jones Newswires, Feb 3]

SatCon raised $8M by selling shares at about $1.65 plus a sweetener of warrants to buy more shares at $2. 

SatCon will sell NIST a 2.2 MW uninterruptible flywheel-based power supply for $1.8M plus an option to buy another for $1.5M. NIST must be expecting either a terror attack on its bureaucracy or more battles with hurricanes. [Oct 04]

SatCon's outsource division got a $1.5M contract to build a power supply for plasma trash burners. The Burlington Ontario operation has supplied over 20 of these power supplies to international markets. The foreign manufacturing doesn't seem to bother the SBIR arms of the government who keep shoveling Phase 2 awards to SatCon. Actually, SBIR rules allow a US-owned firm that does its SBIR in America to manufacture all it wants outside the US. That's mostly because the SBIR advocates are American R&D firms, not manufacturers, and government ignores any economic implications of its SBIR actions.  

SatCon says it booked  $2.2M in industrial product contracts. Even though its track record is to lose on contracts but make it up in volume, maybe it could even make a profit. Maybe!

SatCon reported another $1M government contract, this time with Energy to develop inverters, advanced of course, for residences (that can beat the power company's diddling the home owner  to avoid competition?).  But at the rate SatCon loses money on more business, increasing volume should merely put it in the ground sooner. [Nov 10, 03]

SatCon has a new cash supply to cover its continuing losses,  from its new hoard that it raised from a private placement from nameless investors in a convertible preferred. [Nov 3, 03]

SatCon shot up 22% when it announced that it had "successfully demonstrated" the ability of its Integrated Power System (IPS) to isolate power outages in a simulated "all-electric" Navy ship power grid.  Ever heard a company talk of an unsuccessful demonstration?  SatCon has had $12M of Navy money to far to show that the IPS works. SatCon claims the system  has possible application to all future naval electric ships with a market potential estimated to be in excess of $500 million if fully implemented.  Maybe with $500 on the top line, SatCon can bring a plus down to the bottom line. 

Profit in blackouts.  SatCon stock has quadrupled in the past month as the market takes a positive view of prospects for even making profits. This week SatCon announced it got the OK from GSA for government agencies to buy from the catalog SatCon's  Rotary UPS (uninterruptible power supply). That just means it is pre-approved, it says nothing about whether any agency would actually buy any. Meanwhile, SatCon reported another blue quarter with a net loss of $6.7M as revenues plunged 46%. 

SatCon sank another 17% to 70 cents after reporting more sickly financials. [May 14, 03] SatCon also got a delisting notice for Sept 15 if the stock price doesn't re-mount the $1. 

The bank gave SatCon another yard of rope in more time to to make a $15M debt and equity deal. financing transaction. One (of many barriers) is last year's going concern qualification from its auditors. Meanwhile, the stock price languishes under the buck. 

As SatCon's auditors questioned its "going concern" premise in the face of continuing losses (another $5.4M in the latest quarter), SatCon said it got another $5-7M equity financing. 

We had a very successful fourth quarter in terms of new business, said David Eisenhaure, SatCon's CEO as SatCon reported $19M in new business booked. Profitability? Have W bang his war drum to divert attention.

Who Will Buy a Flywheel?(May 24) For Beacon's new high-power (250kw to 500kw), shorter-duration composite flywheel there seem to be not enough buyers to provide cash before the $30M runs out at $1.5M per month burn rate. Says David Kurzman, an analyst at H.C. Wainwright in Multex Investor (May 25), Composite flywheel technology simply does not make sense for UPS applications. Nobody cares how light your system is when it's installed on or below the ground..... Another problem stems from the very logic of BCON's business model, composite systems, while faster and lighter than traditional systems, carry huge component costs. This tradeoff is acceptable for, say, satellite projects, where weight is an issue. But it's an obstacle to penetration in the terrestrial markets BCON is targeting. Multex says Beacon had no sales in the first quarter, expects no sales of its low-power device in 2002, and looks forward to fewer than 10 orders of its high-power design by the end of the year.

SatCon says it got two Army contracts totaling $1.5M to develop novel power electronics and advanced materials technologies for hybrid electric vehicles: one to demonstrate the cost and reliability benefits of silicon carbide based inverters for hybrid electric vehicles, and one to develop a continuously variable transmission that employs SatCon's patent pending magnetorheological fluid technology. Why the news isn't as great as the 10% bump in the depressed stock price: they're two more SBIRs and not much of indication of long term military interest in buying volume production. The company press release doesn't mention the program source, but the Army's August 2001 SBIR list does.

In advance of its earning release Monday, SatCon lost another 11% of market cap, down to $27M. It is now down 90% from its high of the past 12 months. Better power management gizmos just aren't selling well enough to make money. SatCon has a substantial boost in its early years in the 80s from SBIR, especially defense that liked the magnetic bearings technology. Now DOD has the bearings technology and SatCon has the pain of losing money. It was a nice ride for a while in the bubble.

Beacon Power flywheel running down. With the stock price well below $1 (37 cents) the stock is due for de-listing in mid-June. Although Beacon claims lots of cash, the customers are staying away in droves. Beacon was spun off from SatCon in 1997 to commercialize (sell) flywheels. SatCon is having sinking price problems of its own, although it's still over $2. Flywheels looks like one of those future technologies that will be so for a while.

When SatCon warned Wall Street that it would lose something like $10M for the present quarter, the traders whacked the stock price and at least one broker downgraded it. Day's loss 13%.

The sex appeal of SatCon's futuristic, alternative-energy products has been overshadowed by the decline of its mainstay electronic-components business. Remember that good old slowdown in telecom spending? Regardless, if SATC can stem the cash burn this year and get revenue growth going again, it'll justify the torturous ride its shareholders have endured. [Multex Investor, Apr 17]

Although SatCon says its Power Systems business unit got $1.5M in contacts over the past several weeks, the NASDAQ traders don't seem impressed as SatCon's ship takes on water. SatCon, of course, claims that the orders are a signal of new life in its industrial automation and semiconductor manufacturing equipment markets. But $1M is in MagLev which has a quite uncertain future. [facts from Mass High Tech, Feb 21]

SatCon got a $4M extension on its contract with General Atomics to keep developing its Integrated Power Systems. Under the latest phase, SatCon will deliver 100KW and 300KW power converter and control assemblies to be tested as part of the demonstration program for the Navy’s all-electric ship. [says Matthew French, Mass High Tech, Jan 23]

SatCon shot up 28% on news that it had cut a deal to peddle Digital Fuel Cell Controllers to Fuel Cell for power plants. APA Optics shot up 21% without news. .

SatCon joined a fuel cell demonstration project led by Verizon. SatCon will contribute its PowerGate(TM) power electronics conversion and controls to the consortium that includes Nuvera Fuel Cells, KeySpan Energy, and the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative. At least some of money will coome from the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust.If virtual phone monopolist Verizon puts as much energy into this project as it does to resolve customer complaints, it could be a long cold winter.

Beacon Power rose 43% from barely anything to barely noticeable at a market cap of $50M as it announced that it sold a 2 KWH flywheel to Cox Communications for back-up power in Phoenix.

The past fiscal year was a very busy and productive time for the Company , said CEO David Eisenhaure of SatCon's loss of $24M for the year as revenues rose a lot to $41M. With enough such business activity, a company could go broke faster. The stock price sagged to a market cap of $82M, down 70% from its high for the past twelve months.

David Eisenhaure, of SatCon Technology holds an increasingly rare title trifecta among power technology executives. He's the company's president, chief executive - and founder.More and more power technology companies are shedding the brainy folks who started them for company leaders who are more comfortable in the boardroom than the research lab. That transition is a sign of maturation for the still young industry, said John McCormack, of management consulting firm Stern Stewart & Co. in New York. ... Eisenhaure has an impressive resume that includes developing power systems for the NASA, but he admits he can't do it all at SatCon. ... "The first thing you have to realize is you can't end up doing it all yourself," Eisenhaure said. "You start with all the hats, and you quickly realize that you have to get rid of them as fast as you can." The shift from the development stage to the manufacturing stage often is a critical time for founders. "The original founders typically don't have the skills to take it beyond the next stage," said Frank Gibbard, chief executive of H Power, a Clifton, N.J., fuel cell developer. ... at SatCon, Eisenhaure and colleagues are still losing money, but the firm is expected to be among the first power-tech firms to move into the black, according to analyst estimates compiled by Thomson Financial/First Call. H Power and FuelCell also remain in the red. [CHRISTINA CHEDDAR, Wall Street Journal, Sep 11]

Lead With the Good News After boasting that revenue was up 22%, SatCon took several paragraphs to get to the news that operating loss for the quarter was $3M. CEO/founder David Eisenhaure said, Our accomplishments during the third quarter demonstrate SatCon's ability to leverage its standard product base and position itself for additional growth. [Translation: hang on folks, our stuff will sell someday.] Wall Street did not panic and kept the stock in its recent trading area down 80% from the 12-month high.

SatCon Acquires Another(Jun 27) SatCon will acquire Inverpower Controls Ltd, of Burlington, Ontario, a manufacturer of power electronics modules and advanced high-speed digital controls for use in industrial power supply, power conversion and power quality systems. SatCon paid $100K cash and 400,000 shares of common stock (trading around 10).

SatCon sold 1.5M shares at $12.125, a 12% discount to the previous closing price. In principle, the scheme Mini-Secondary(TM) program is generally suitable for growth-oriented public companies with market capitalizations between $100 million and $1 billion and top-tier institutional investors seeking to establish sizable long-term positions in promising middle-market companies.

SatCon rolled out a competitor to American Superconductor's D-SMES, developing a 250kW UPS (uninterruptible power supply) flywheel system by end end of the year. SatCon says the steel flywheel would supply power for several seconds until the generator is automatically started.

All That Demand and No Profit(May 2)Revenues up 50%, operating loss up 25%. How soon will such a company go broke? SatCon has $7M cash on hand to absorb the regular bleeding.Of the $8.5M revenue, $3.0M comes from funded R&D - someone else's contract work (mostly the US Navy). Here's a power technology company that doesn't make money in a US that is in power shortage crisis talk with Vice-Presidential task force making political hay by pretending that the previous administrations had no policy.

SatCon lost either $5.6M or $2.3M for the quarter depending on how you view an accounting adjustment for warrants and investments. The operating loss of only $2.3M was a slight improvement.

California, Have Some Power. SatCon announces a new family of uninterruptible power supply (UPS) products at the Los Angeles Power Association Winter Conference to provide up to 2.0MW of power during power outages. The StarSine MegaPower UPS will combine Ling Electronics' StarSine power converters and controls with commercially available battery banks or flywheels to provide uninterruptible power during brownouts or blackouts, such as the rolling blackouts that have recently affected certain regions in California. Note that the product does not create power where their is now fuel to run the gadget(s). But dule is easier to stockpile against an emergency than kilowatts are. Now, if SatCom could just make money atop all the new product announcements. Its stock price is about double its 1992 IPO price and a third of its high for the last twelve months.

SatCon Technology rose 10% when it said that it has been selected by the U.S Navy to develop modular motor drive systems for the Navy's DD21 ``all-electric'' ship. Under this award, SatCon will develop the initial design and perform simulation studies for a modular motor drive that will be designed to be compatible with several different motor types. Motor drives integrate electronics and controls within a motor to perform specific motor control functions. The initial study phase is valued at approximately $200,000. SatCon recently was awarded a $2.7M subcontract to design and develop the integrated power conversion system for the new ship. ``We're pleased to be selected to develop another system for the Navy's DD21 `all-electric' ship,'' said David Eisenhaure, SatCon's President and Chief Executive Officer. ``The DD21 represents a growing trend in the conversion of vehicles and heavy machinery to `all-electric,' thereby creating a new and broader sector for power electronics. SatCon, a heavy user of SBIR, has shown a number of ways to lose money in its commercial business and such Navy work will at least keep the doors open.

The Navy's one-time SBIR poster child, Savi Technology (Sunnyvale, CA), is in the thick of securing cargo containers with smart electronic seals, says MIT Tech Review (Sep 03). Of course Savi's not the only company and/or institution to have the great idea for container security since the task needs more application engineering than breakthrough innovation. 

Savi Raises $20M  (May 7) Savi Technology raised $20M for its campaign to sell its tracking gizmos to the commercial world, says the Wall Street Journal. Savi is the Navy's poster-child for SBIR because Navy gave Savi an award for an application of its radio transmitter technology that flunked marketing for tracking children with bracelets. UPS liked the technology enough to invest in Savi but won't be adopting it anytime soon. Was that a good use of SBIR which is supposed to be an innovation nursery? It is at least as good as you should expect from a bureau which found a happy combination of utility, low risk, and a rare commercialization story. Savi claims $200M in military sales. The again private firm was first bought by Texas Instruments, traded to Raytheon, and then bought back by corporate investors.

Savi Technology, now a subsidiary of Raytheon via Texas Instruments, won a Motorola protest to GAO for a $111M contract. Savi is the Navy's SBIR poster-child. [facts from WSJ, Dec 23].

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Savi Gets $111M Contract(Aug26) The Navy's SBIR poster-child, Savi Technology (Mountain View, CA), will get $111 million from DOD to track military supplies with its radio transceiver. Savi is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Raytheon (having been bought out by TI which sold its military business to Raytheon). Says the Silicon Valley Business Journal Savi received its first DOD contract in 1994 [for] $70 million which was scheduled to expire this year. During the prior two years, the company had received $2.5M from DOD through SBIR, a little-known federal grant program. Savi makes cargo tags to track cargo at distances of up to 600 feet. By today's info-tech standards, it's a low-tech smart card and driven more by cost than technology. 

Scientific Research (Atlanta GA)

Efficient Ears. On average, companies generated roughly $28 in earmark revenue for every dollar they spent lobbying. By any standard, that's a hefty ratio: The companies in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index brought in just $17.52 in revenues for every dollar of capital expenditure in 2006. ... Says Keith Ashdown, chief investigator for the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense: "The lion's share of these projects is about politics and jobs, rather than real needs." [Business Week, Sep 17]  The earmark efficiency champ is an SBIR company, Scientific Research (Atlanta GA and others; about $15M SBIR), that got $344 in earmarked funds per dollar of political "investment".Other SBIR investors: Isothermal Systems (KY and WA; $2M SBIR) at $221 per lobbying dollar; Prologic (Fairmont WV; $2M SBIR) at $133 per dollar; Trex Enterprises (San Diego CA; $7M SBIR) at $116 per dollar. From an efficiency viewpoint, politicians make a good investment. You just have to learn how to kiss frogs.

Scientific Solutions (N. Chelmsford, MA) )

Scientific Solutions (N. Chelmsford, MA) got Laurin Publishing’s prestigious 2001 Photonics Circle of Excellence Award in recognition of their NIR High-Resolution Liquid Crystal Fabry-Perot Etalon, a next-generation tunable optical filter optimized for use in the Near Infrared. Product worthiness is based on uniqueness, importance to the industry, and technological achievement. The awards go to 25 technically innovative products. SSI’s President John Noto accepted the award at SPIE's Photonics West. Some of the development capital came from SBIRs from NASA, Air Force, BMDO, and Energy. [SSTI, Jan 25,02]

Scientific Systems

Loving Experience.   Scientific Systems (Woburn,MA; $50M+ SBIR) won a NASA JPL Phase 2 SBIR for Distributed Formation State Estimation Algorithms Under Resource and Multi-Tasking Constraints. Creare (Hanover NH; $120M SBIR) won four NASA JPL Phase 2 SBIRs. Intelligent Automation (Rockville MD; $100M SBIR) won three NASA JPL Phase 2 SBIRs. Physical Optics (Torrance, CA; $200M SBIR) won one NASA JPL Phase 2 SBIR. Radiation Monitoring Devices
(Watertown, MA; $90M SBIR) won one NASA JPL Phase 2 SBIR. Etc, etc, etc. A zillion start-ups all over America got letters saying there was not enough money to nurture their ideas.

Scynexis (Durham, NC)

[Frenchman] Yves Ribeill, CEO of  drug chemistry company Scynexis (Durham, NC; no SBIR, 130 employees), found a way to combine his passion with his business.  Last month, he worked out a deal with the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative [which] is paying Scynexis $17M over five years to help find safer medicines to treat sleeping sickness, also known as human African trypanosomiasis. ... Founded in 2000 by 24 scientists who worked at Aventis CropScience's headquarters in Research Triangle Park  [Sabine Vollmer, Raleigh News&Observer, Dec 27]

Chemistry-focused drug discovery and development company Scynexis (Durham, NC), no SBIR, is thinking IPO by partnering with large pharmaceutical companies. [Raleigh News and Observer, Jan 9] Its roots lie in France and Switzerland.

SD Catalyst Group

 Grab Your Politician for Plus-Up. Smaller and more transparent earmarks of federal funds for favored domestic projects are returning after a one-year moratorium on the controversial practice. ... a bit less than 1% of total R&D appropriations (3% for DOD) ... The Senate Top 10, are mostly smaller states with senators in key committee chairmanships—Mississippi, New Mexico and Tennessee are at the top. ... search AAAS's new database of 2008 earmarks [AAAS Newsletter, Sep 07] But for small business, even 1% is a big honey pot. In the list (August version): Electro Energy  (CT; SBIR), Ocean Power Technologies (OR, SBIR in NJ),  DBS Energy CT, Eikos (MA; $8M+ SBIR), Cellular Bioengineering HI, Cerematec  (UT; SBIR), Ramgen WA, Advanced Radar Technologies WY, Compact Membrane Systems (DE; $20M SBIR), SD Catalyst Group SD.  Your story is that high-tech small business will create jobs, and they don't know whether your claim is valid or just wishful thinking. Like the federal mission agencies who then have to award and supervise the contract, they don't seem much to care.

Seattle Genetics

Seattle Genetics raised $97M from a stock sale. [Seattle Times, Jan 24, 08]

Seattle Genetics down 12% as it said it plans to sell 10 million shares [Jan 14, 08]

Seattle Genetics ($1M+ SBIR) said it received a $4 million milestone payment from partner Genentech to begin an early clinical trial on its lead blood-cancer drug. [Angel Gonzales, Seattle Times, Jan 9]

Seattle Genetics ($1M SBIR) said  it had begun a new mid-stage clinical trial for its SGN-40 anti-cancer therapy, triggering a $12M milestone payment from research partner Genentech. ... could receive up to $800M in payments from Genentech upon hitting research and regulatory milestones [Angel Gonzalez, Seattle Times, Dec 8]

Seattle Genetics up 15% [Feb 1, 07]

Seattle Medical Tech

Seattle Medical Technologies, a medical-device startup founded by the prolific inventor Clif Alferness, has raised at least $8.6 million in venture capital ... from two prominent investment firms that have backed Alferness in startups before ... Alferness, who has diabetes and wears an insulin pump, has inventions in a wide range of medical areas — including the heart, lungs and esophageal tissues. [Luke Timmerman, Seattle Times, Oct 21]

Sicel Technologies (Morrisville NC)

Three Triangle technology firms raised $10.5M last month to hire workers, invest in research and market new products Medical-implants maker Sicel Technologies raised $7M; Biotech startup Entegrion raised $2M (first VC); Centice Corp. raised $1.5M. [Raleigh News and Observer, Nov 10] Sicel and Centice have had SBIRs.

Sicel Technologies (Morrisville, NC) received regulatory approval to use its wireless, implantable sensor in prostate cancer treatment. [Raleigh News & Observer, Jun 30] Sicel had one HHS Phase 1 SBIR in 2002. 

Secure Computing (Minneapolis, MN)

Secure Computing took a 38% cold shower (7/12/06) after cutting its quarterly revenue estimate.by 10% .

Among the losers was Secure Computing Corp, a network security service provider, which went public in November 1995 at $16, soared to close at $48.25 on its first day and now trades at just $6.25. Investors who snapped up the stock at the close of its first day would have lost almost 90 percent of their money. [San Jose Mercury, Jul 30] The vicissitudes of IPO.

Seldon Labs (Windsor, VT)

Year-old Seldon Laboratories (Windsor, VT) Seldon Laboratories (Windsor, VT) got a $2M AF contract to develop post-prototype water filters from carbon nanotubes. In principle, the military can simply put almost any available water straight thru the filter into mouths or veins. [Small Times, Apr 26] Then long convoys will not be needed to transport water from Kuwait in plastic bottles. The web sites of DOD and the company show no sign that the prototype came from SBIR. Seldon claims that its nano-tubes create a "kill zone" capable of destroying all shapes and all types of bacteria and virus, as well as other pathogenic microbes such as the common Cryptosporidium parvum and Giardia lamblia.  If it works as advertised, it sounds like the best carbon thing to come along since activated charcoal. Why didn't the AF use SBIR to develop the device? Too slow!  If you have such a breakthrough that you can prove, the DOD will not waste its nor your time diddling with slo-mo set-aside programs. It may have helped get inside the Pentagon door that a co-founder was Roger Kennedy, former CFO of the Ford Foundation, Director of the National Park Service and Director of the Smithsonian Institution. The anchor-man is Chris Cooper who worked a dozen years on nanotubes at Dartmouth from the days of his PhD.

Semiconductor Laser Inc (Binghampton, NY)

$100M By 2000 (Feb 12) At least one financial wag foresees $100M revenue for Semiconductor Laser International (Binghampton, NY) by the year 2000. SLI is the creature of Goeff Burnham, who once got SDIO SBIR at a company in Ithaca, NY, with the exclusive right to an Al-free laser from Manijeh Razeghi at Northwestern University who in turn credits DARPA with the enabling funding. SLI also got an exclusive license through a CRADA for an Air Force MBE technology for which it just got delivered the world's first MBE crystal growth reactor. Along with the CRADA came the Air Force inventor to manage the machine. Getting out the Al allows laser life to run years instead of days (so far at least in Illinois). Of course, Northwestern was far from the only institution working to eliminate aluminum; Ortel (Alhambra, CA) for one was also trying with BMDO SBIR. SLI's deal give Northwestern 10,000 shares of SLI stock and royalties. SLI went public in March 1996 raising $8.6M. Biggest competitor for such lasers, SDL Inc (San Jose, CA) which has now graduated from SBIR by growing to 470 people while making a profit.

Semprius (Durham NC)

Semprius, a Durham NC semiconductor startup, raised $4.1M in venture capital. ...  commercializing a process for printing semiconductor circuits on any surface, including glass, plastic and other types of semiconductors, with applications in electronic displays, solar cells and wireless devices. Semprius was founded in 2005 with technology spun out of the University of Illinois. [Raleigh News & Observer, Apr 17] No SBIR yet reported by SBA.

Senomyx

Senomyx down 11% [Dec 27, 07]

Senomyx down 20% on reporting a raft of "accomplishments" that bury any financial bad news.  [Nov 1, 07]

Senomyx up 16% after consumers were introduced to the first commercial product that uses one of Senomyx's flavor ingredients.[Jun 5, 07]

SensAble Technologies

SensAble Technologies (Woburn, MA; no SBIR), developer of touch-enabled systems for 3D modeling, today announced that it has shipped its 6,000th PHANTOM haptic device. [Boston Globe, Jan 25, 08]

Sensors Unlimited (Princeton, NJ)

Sensors Unlimited (Princeton, NJ) says the federal government will get $200-400M in capital gains and taxes from technologies supported by eight years of SBIR in their infancy. The immediate gain comes from the recent acquisition of Sensors by FINISAR for $700M. SU had about $8M of SBIR for instruments based on III-V materials like InGaAs.

Sensors Unlimited (Princeton, NJ) bought itself back for $6M after selling itself to Finisar for $700M in info-tech bubble time. Look for Gerg Olsen to return to the SBIR table. It was Olsen's sceond selling of a new company, having sold Epitaxx to Nippon just before he could sign an SBIR award from SDIO (that's MDA two generations ago). Thanks to Jeff Bond for keeping us up with high-tech developments.

SensorTran (Austin, TX)

SensorTran (Austin, TX; no SBIR) raised $8M in venture financing to expand its business of making and selling systems that do very accurate remote temperature measurements for a range of industrial applications. ... the company's venture investment total to $13.5M in the past two years. [Kirk Ladendorf, Austin American-Statesman, Dec 20] Starting as a division of Systems & Processes Engineering Corporation (Austin, TX; $40M or so SBIR) with the X33 space shuttle program to monitor internal cryogenic fuel tanks, SensorTran has been designing, manufacturing, and installing advanced fiber optic-based monitoring solutions since 1998, starting  [company website]

Sepracor

Sepracor and the University of Massachusetts sued India's Lupin Ltd. to block it from selling a generic version of the allergy pill Clarinex in the US.  [Boston Globe, Nov 7, 07]

Sepracor (Marlborough MA; $2M SBIR) plans to reduce its sales and marketing staff after a drop in profit during the third quarter. [Mass High Tech, Oct 30, 07]

Sepracor ($2M SBIR 1986-1998) agreed with Eisai Co. Ltd. of Japan for the development and commercialization of Lunesta for the Japanese market.  ...and applied for clearance for Europe ...  Sepracor, which employs about 2,400 workers, reported a profit of $184.5 million in 2006, on revenue of $1.2 billion. [Mass High Tech, Jul 27]

SeQual Technologies (San Diego CA)

SeQual Technologies (San Diego CA; two Phase 1 SBIRs)(of 34 total awards) won the award  in the Medical Devices field for Technology Innovation 2007 by the Wall Street Journal.

Sequella (Rockville, MD)

Sequella (Rockville, MD; $6M SBIR) is getting orphan drug (for products that treat rare diseases) status from U.S. and European regulators for its potential new antibiotic called SQ109. ... started by a former government scientist 10 years ago to take on the global problem of tuberculosis  ... orphan drug designation gives Sequella, which has just 16 employees, market exclusivity protections and a speedier, less expensive path to approval of its drug  [Michael Rosenwald, Washington Post, Oct 22] 

Sequenom

Sequenom up 12%  [Nov 6, 07]

Sequenom down 11% in disappointing financials. [Nov 1, 07]

Sequenom up 13% [Oct 17, 07]

Sequenom up 14% [Oct 15, 07]

Sequenom up 11% [Oct 1, 07]

Sequenom up another 15%  [Sep 27, 07]

Sequenom up 16%  [Sep 25, 07] after it announced that it plans to develop a third-generation single molecule nucleic acid analysis technology based on exclusive license rights from Harvard University that covers a readout system technology for single DNA molecules based on simultaneous optical probing of multiple nanopores.

SeraCare Life Sciences

SeraCare Life Sciences (Milford, MA: one SBIR) provider of services and products to the biopharmaceutical industry, is expanding its Milford facility to include a 60,000-square-foot research and manufacturing facility. [Mass High Tech, Oct 5, 07]

SeraCare Life Sciences (1 Phase 1 SBIR) got a $10M revolving loan. [Mass High-Tech, Jun 11]

Serenex (Durham, NC)

Serenex  (Durham, NC; no SBIR) claims in a lawsuit that a former scientist stole trade secrets and funneled them to two Chinese companies that used the information in overseas patent applications for a cancer treatment.  Serenex, which has 30 employees, is testing two experimental cancer drugs in humans. .. Also named as defendants are two Chinese companies, Beijing Gylongli Sci. & Tech. Co. and GYLL Biomedtech.  [David Ranii, Raleigh News & Observer, Jul 27]

Nearly a dozen venture capital firms combined to invest $26 M in Serenex (Durham, NC; no SBIR) a small unprofitable firm working on two drugs to treat cancer patients. ... founded in 2001, has raised about $81M in venture money [Frank Norton, Raleigh News & Observer, Jun 28, 07]  The Carolinas need all the innovative business they can find to fill the ever expanding hole of the textile industry. 

Sierra Monolithics (Redondo Beach, CA)

Downed Drone as Advertisment (Oct 12)When Iraq displayed the remains of a drone it had shot down (only unmanned USAF planes fly low and slow) the viewer could see two signs of the makers: USAF and Sierra Monolithics (Redondo Beach, CA). Charles Harper and Sierra got started with BMDO SBIR in 1988 and has had four BMDO Phase 2s in ten years plus three from other DOD agencies. This February it got its first round of VC money $14M for optical microchip development.

SI Diamond Still Kicking in some form.  SI Diamond Technology, a shadow of Howard Schmidt's diamond coated dream of the late 80s, is now a micro-conglomerate after its de-listing when diamond coating proved too expensive for all those CVD dreamers. Nonetheless, pressing on, the shell said that a subsidiary, Applied Nanotech, did a license agreement with one of the largest display manufacturing companies in Japan for all .the owned and assigned patents of SI Diamond and Applied Nanotech, Inc. in the field of carbon films/carbon nanotubes electron emission technologies for the manufacturing and sales of flat panel displays. Japan apparently still dreams of diamond. [story from MDA's Tech Applications group (which soldiers on to get good press for Star Wars despite a big depletion of the gold mine of entrepreneurial SBIR companies doing leading edge innovation)] [Dec 02]

A Whisper from the Past SI Diamond Technology, well de-listed from NASDAQ and no longer quoted by the Wall Street Journal, says it get good operation of a sealed triode-type color field emission display using diamond/carbon films. [Laser Focus World, Dec 98]

SI Diamond Gone (Feb 27) Trading stopped in SI Diamond Technology (Austin, TX). SIDT was created by Howard Schmidt in the MOCVD diamond craze of the late 80s. But like another SBIR-supported diamond firm, Crystallume, the product proved too expensive for real markets. For such firms SBIR is a good start that has to end when the product cannot penetrate the market. When that happens, more product oriented R&D like SBIR isn't the answer. The research thrust should shift back to basic research best done at non-profits like universities and the start-ups should wait until the next plateau of possible exploitable technology. Instead, too many SBIR programs won't let go and let the company fail. Companies are not knowledge; companies convert knowledge to market profits. One of the barriers to letting go is the government's use of technical experts to judge SBIRs on their "scientific and technical merit" (whatever that means). Those tech experts confuse the purpose of research with the purpose of SBIR.

SI Diamond Loses Again(Aug 19) SI Diamond Tech lost $1.7M on falling revenues of only $1M while shutting one of its four subsidiaries - Plasmatron. Diamond-coating scalpels and scissors must not have enough appeal for the price. Some optimists remain as the stock stays above a buck a share. .

SI Diamond Gets Another $2M(Jun 27) SI Diamond Tech, sans Howard Schmidt, said it got a private placement commitment for $2M with chances for $3M. The stock remains under a buck.

Howard's End (Jun 24) The founder left the board and SI Diamond Technology is no longer under the spell of Howard Schmidt. Two new board members replaced Howard, one an astronaut and one a technopreneur (with more success than Howard had). Howard founded Schmidt Instruments "with $275 and not enough sense to know better". He was an enthusiastic spokesman who knew you don't build a company sitting around guarding your in-box. (Only government can do that.) How long the company survives remains to be seen, not because Howard left but because the goal now seems to be always moving to beyond the available capital. Diamond, or even almost diamond, has turned out to be harder than we thought in the 80s.

SI Diamond Wins Texas Billboard(Jun 9) SI Diamond Technology won an exclusive $3.7M purchase from a Texas electronic billboard company. The stock price remains below a buck.

More Revenue and More Loss(Apr 7) SI Diamond Technology lost $13.7M for 1996 even though revenues grew 90% to $5.8M. SIDT now bills itself as a holding company, holding apparently a losing hand. The BMDO SBIR investment in CVD diamond didn't produce commercializable products, just like the other 20 or so companies who tried. Two went public where the trouble is more visible and spread to more people.

SI Diamond Raises $2M More(Mar 18) Preferred stock and convertible bonds raised another $2M for SI Diamond Technology (Austin, TX).

More Money on the Way(Mar 6) SI Diamond Technology (Austin, TX) says more money is on the way to refinance the self-called holding company. Amount and source still a mystery. SI got a running start from SDIO with SBIRs to develop CVD diamond magic and a license from UT Dallas for a gamma-ray laser spinoff technology to make almost diamond. It's the almost diamond that formed the basis for the capital-eating display technology. Since the SBIR days of promise the founder Howard Schmidt has been pigeonholed and the company seems always to be getting more money with little sign of becoming a profitable company. The NASDAQ trading shows the pessimism.

SI Diamond Signs Asian Rep (Feb 7) SI Diamond Technology (Austin, TX) signed on Diamond Pro-Shop Nomura Company Ltd to represent it in Asia.

SI Diamond Splits Making and Selling (Jan 14) SI Diamond Technology (Austin, TX) formed two subsidiaries - one to sell to the billboard industry and one to develop the field emission technology. The press release sounds an awful lot like a government plan to reorganize when things aren't going so great. The market hasn't liked SI's results so far, slicing SI's market cap by 80% from its high. (SI had a slight language deviation in noting "it's Plasmatron subsidiary", a problem widely respected among modern scientific proposal writers. For some reason modern scientists don't know "its" from "it's" nor "principle" from "principal").

Third Generation LampSI Diamond Technology (Austin, TX) announced its third generation 12,000 fl lamp that "opens the door for a number of product applications". It can be seen at Display Works 97 in San Jose Jan 29-30. [Business Wire, Jan 6, 97] Let's see: have we heard such claims before, especially about diamond? Not just from SI Diamond. Crystallume was saying the same things as it slipped beneath the waves. Whether diamond-like technology makes it in the market still depends on getting the price down to earth, a silent aspect of SI's great-new-technology announcement. The material comes not from an SBIR but from a spinoff of Star-Wars gamma ray laser research at University of Texas. SI, though, did have a lot of SBIR to search for CVD diamond miracles.

A Capital ReshuffleSI Diamond Technology(Austin, TX) announced a capital reshuffle in which preferred stockholders took common shares to liberate $1M cash - not a happy sign. Said the CEO, I am pleased the holders of our Series E Preferred Stock have demonstrated their support for our restructuring, [otherwise I'm toast]. Sep 96

Diamond Billboard PrototypeSixteen pixels, matrix-addressable, and quick enough for a billboard (but no tobacco advertising please) is the proof-of-concept prototype by SI Diamond Technology (Austin, TX). The final billboard would have 320 by 240 color pixels that would work at video rates. That's not TV quality but billboards speak in broad strokes anyway, ideally an incessant unforgettable message. Maybe now, the stock price can pick itself up from 1 1/2 , down from the 5 of the 1993 IPO. SI Diamond got its start as Schmidt Instruments with a license to exploit the gamma-ray laser research spinoff that produced the amorphic (not exactly) diamond that underpins for the display technology. SI also got a lot of SBIR for CVD diamond, for which it is still looking for the magic (as are all the other CVD diamond mongers).

Texas Red Ink
The ink flowed red again in Texas as SI Diamond Technology reported another big quarterly loss of $4M on revenues of $2M. Traders in SI stock, who have beaten the stock down below$2, seem to be losing faith that such losses are merely a preparation for a profitable flat-panel display technology.

Howard Schmidt Steps Aside
Howard Schmidt who founded Schmidt Instruments (Houston, TX) "with $275 and not enough sense to know better" yielded his position and Chairman and CEO of SI Diamond Technology Inc . Howard made a double company, one part doing research on CVD diamond on government funds (SBIR), and the other going for the gold with flat panel displays hinged on what Howard labeled Amorphic Diamond, a diamond-like carbon from a process spun off from the pie-in-the-future-sky Star Wars gamma-ray laser program. He attracted a lot of capital including $5M from the Russian gas company after going public in 1993 at $5 a share. The stock now trades under 3. SIDT is having the same trouble as the other CVD diamond makers - high unit cost for a world-beating product. None of the several BMDO SBIR-funded diamond entrepreneurs made it work commercially. The other 1993 IPO diamond company was Crystallume (Palo Alto, CA), now defunct. BMDO tried mightily in both its SBIR and Innovative Science programs to adapt the Russian CVD diamond for its wonderfully high conductivity and bandgap mostly with the oversight of Max Yoder of the Office of Naval Research. . Nice try; more research needed.

Siga Technologies

SIGA Tech up 13% [Nov 28, 07]

SIGA Technologies down 10% [Aug 3, 07]

SIGA Technologies up 22% for getting included in market index. [Jul 25, 07]

SIGA Technologies down 11% after reporting financials. [May 8, 07]

SIGA Technologies up 14% on news of improvement  in a toddler patient who got a disease after receiving the company's smallpox drug candidate.  [Mar 19, 07]

SIGA Technologies up 10% [Jan 18, 07]

Siga up 27% [Nov 7, 06]

Siga Technologies soared 135% after the micro-cap biotech claimed its lead drug became "the first drug ever to demonstrate 100% protection against human smallpox virus in a primate trial conducted at the federal CDC". [thestreet.com, Oct 18] Among its nearly $30M in federal grants and contracts to develop the smallpox agent since 2001 [Joe Rojas-Burke, Oregonian, Oct 19 (the New York firm has its research labs in Corvallis)], including several SBIRs, Siga had two Phase 2s that totaled $11.4M from HHS. Which would have caused NHS to award a lot of small Phase 1s to keep the average award below the Congressional target of $750K. Yes, it's politics that mandates spreading the largess around and agencies' shoehorning projects that need outsize awards into SBIR just because the firm is small. But the mandate doesn't stop multiple-multiple awards to favored firms who don't mind many small awards as long as they sum to good money.

Really Big SBIR.  Siga Technologies got a $4.8M SBIR to continue its smallpox work. NIH had given Siga a $1.7M Phase 1 in 2003 followed by a $5.8M Phase 2 in 2003 for smallpox work. After starting life in New York City with Phase 1 SBIRs, Siga moved to Oregon and now is in negotiation to be bought by a firm in Annapolis MD, says the The Oregonian (Aug 3). SIGA has been successful in leveraging these platforms through partnerships with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and TransTech Pharma.  We have obtained in excess of $12 million of funding from NIH grants.  We also have two contracts with the U.S. Army for $3.2 and a $1.6 million. Note that federal agencies can and will hand out big money awards when the work suits their purposes, and will shunt small firms into SBIR whenver possible. Whether that promotes the use of SBIR to foster economically useful innovation is a judgment call to be made by Congress when it can take time from "values" pandering.  A large chunk of SBIR already goes to ordinary federal R&D without regard to economic  consequences.

Silicon Mountain Design

SBIR Technology of the Year Award 1996 and 1995, claims SMD (Silicon Mountain Design), (Colorado Springs, CO). It's not a big SBIR user: $2M in 1995 but not enough earlier to make the top (ab)users lists. CCD cameras.

Silverbrook (Australia)

Silverbrook Research [Australia] has spent the last ten years developing Memjet, a printer that uses an array of ink jet nozzles that spans the width of the paper. Company executives have said they feel that they can ship an 8x10 color inkjet by the end of 2008 that will cost less than $200 and print 60 pages a minute. [Mark Hachman, PCMag, Mar 22]

Singulex (St Louis MO)

Researchers at Washington University are using technology from a local biotech startup in the search for more effective diagnostic tests and treatments for cancer, diabetes and other ailments.  Singulex (St Louis MO; no SBIR), which has its research base at the Center for Emerging Technologies business incubator in St. Louis, said that its Erenna system has been installed in the proteomics lab at Washington University's Siteman Cancer Center. The system allows scientists to detect in blood samples minute amounts of proteins, known as biomarkers, that indicate the presence of disease.  [Rachel Melcer, St Louis Post-Dispatch, Nov 16]

Sioux Manufacturing (Fort Totten, ND)

Sioux Manufacturing (Fort Totten, ND; $1M SBIR) agreed to pay $2M to settle a suit saying it had repeatedly shortchanged the armor in up to 2.2 million helmets for the military, including those for the first troops sent to Iraq and Afghanistan. Twelve days before the settlement with the Justice Department was announced, the company was given a new contract of up to $74M to make more armor for helmets to replace the old ones, which were made from the late 1980s to last year. [New York Times, Feb 6, 08] The case involved whistle-blowing employees and below spec manufacturing of Kevlar that nevertheless passed the required bullet -stopping tests.

The gist of the [DOJ] investigation is whether Sioux Manufacturing (Fort Totten, ND; two Phase 2 SBIRs including its first from SDIO) wove the cloth -- the defense against bullets -- densely enough. The Justice Department suggested that the company may never have. A whistle-blower brought the allegations to the government's attention. The Marine Corps Times quoted a Justice report:  "It appears until April 2006, SMC may not have ever complied with the 35 x 35 standard weave density in its construction of comp