FibeRio’s Forcespinning Technology™ Takes Silver At Global Tech Showcase

FibeRio Technology Corporation Vies for Top Technology Title at Sold-Out Forum

http://www.nanowerk.com/news/newsid=15457.php

March 22, 2010 | Arlington, TX – FibeRio Technology Corporation received the silver prize  among the over 90 top technology innovators from across the nation and around the world competing in Arlington, Texas, March 16-17 for top honors at WBT2010 presented by Lockheed Martin.

FibeRio Technology Corporation’s Forcespinning Technology™, which uses centrifugal force to spin nanofibers, was rigorously screened and mentored by WBT commercialization experts to present to a sold-out WBT2010 audience of over 600 participants including venture capital investors, federal agencies and licensees.

“The word is out that for investors, federal agencies and licensees seeking emerging technology opportunities, WBT offers the best deal flow in the nation,” said Paul Huleatt, WBT’s CEO. “We look forward to watching the progress of our WBT2010 presenters.”

According to Mr. Huleatt, approximately 1/3 of past WBT presenters have gone on to secure venture capital or a licensing/strategic partnering agreement.  To date, past presenters have raised over $450 million in first (or next) round venture capital.

“We are very excited to receive such high level recognition for Forcespinning Technology™, and even more excited about the valuable relationships we made in the investment and corporate communities,” said Ellery Buchanan, FibeRio’s President and CEO. He went on to say that, “this event verified that there is a significant market need for equipment and processes that fabricate nanofibers cost-effectively in volume, without high electrical voltage and environmentally harmful and expensive solvents.”

Mr. Huleatt highlighted that the companies groomed to present at WBT leave with new knowledge and contacts to take their technologies to market and beyond.

FibeRio will launch its first line of nanofiber fabrication equipment for the research market in the summer of 2010 as it quickly scales up Forcespinning Technology™ for industrial level production.

ABOUT FibeRio Technology Corporation

By incorporating Forcespinning Technology™ into equipment and manufacturing processes, FibeRio will provide researchers with versatile production capabilities that will facilitate ground breaking research and deliver the nonwovens and technical textiles industries with dramatically increased system level production capacities that will escalate the commercialization of nanofiber applications. www.fiberiotech.com

ABOUT WBT

WBT is the world’s premier event exposing undiscovered, revolutionary energy, life science, IT and physical science technologies emerging from top universities, labs and research institutions. Each WBT is a year-long collaborative effort resulting in deals vetted and mentored by investors and licensees for investors and licensees. WBT2011 will be held March 22-23 in Arlington, Texas. www.wbtshowcase.com

2010’s Top Technology Named at Sold-Out Global Tech Forum

ARLINGTON, Texas – (Business Wire)  http://www.forbes.com/feeds/businesswire/2010/03/18/businesswire136928919.html

Ithaca, NY-based company Orthogonal has developed the top technology of 2010, according to judges for WBT2010, the nation’s premier forum for emerging technologies. WBT2010 platinum, gold and silver winners were announced at last night’s awards dinner for the two-day showcase, in which over 90 technologies competed.

“Orthogonal’s next step is to acquire more customers, and this prize will be something great to tell them,” said platinum prizewinner Fox Holt, CEO of Orthogonal. Mr. Holt said that Orthogonal’s photoresist, licensed by Cornell University, will enable electronics manufacturers to produce a new class of higher-profit margin flexible electronics.

WBT2010’s second place gold prize went to Astronix Research Corporation of Virginia, developer of an advanced e-beam analog to digital converters. Placing third with the silver prize was Texas-based FiberRio Technology Corporation, whose Forcespinning™ technology creates fibers with nanoscale diameters.

WBT2010, held in Arlington, TX, drew over 600 entrepreneurs, angel and venture investors, commercialization experts, federal agencies and technology licensees. Organizers of the annual showcase said that WBT2010 was the largest in WBT history, attracting at least eight federal agencies and major sponsorships from Lockheed Martin, Accenture and Roche Diagnostics.

“You could say that WBT2010 an eight-year overnight success story,” said Paul Huleatt, WBTshowcase CEO. “Essentially this sold-out event is the product of a long track record in bringing the best emerging technologies to market, eight years of collaboration with federal agencies and universities, and a committed host in the Center for Innovation at Arlington.”

WBT2010 organizers say the annual forum has mentored over 560 entrepreneurs to date.

“I attend WBT each year because I get to see 90 deals in one day – that’s how you become a venture investor,” said John Adler, Silver Creek Ventures General Partner. “It’s obvious that WBT presenters have been coached and have learned something in the process.”

WBT2011 will be held March 22-23 in Arlington-DFW, Texas.

About WBT

WBT is the world’s premier event exposing undiscovered, revolutionary energy, life science, IT and physical science technologies emerging from top universities, labs and research institutions. Each WBT is a year-long collaborative effort resulting in deals vetted and mentored by investors and licensees for investors and licensees. www.wbtshowcase.com

SME Unveils Annual “Innovations That Could Change the Way You Manufacture” List

DEARBORN, Mich., March 10, 2010—According to recent news reports, manufacturing is showing clear signs of rebounding. Manufacturing’s other good news: game-changing innovations are about to enhance production on the factory floor.

Included in the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) annual Innovations That Could Change the Way You Manufacture list, Fiberio’’s Forcespinning Technology can help manufacturers reduce the costs of producing nano fibers.

SME’s Innovation Watch Committee compiled the list and its members serve as “innovation researchers” who seek and publish information about technology.

“Our Committee’s goal was to scan the vast technology landscape for cutting-edge innovations and to investigate ways they can be utilized,” says committee member Christopher Kaye, director of innovative technology, US Endoscopy.

Nano Fibers May Now Fit Your Budget

Often used to strengthen materials such as bikes, golf clubs, tennis rackets and drug delivery systems, nano fibers were at one time very expensive to make.

“New centrifugal force spinning machines (Fiberio Technology Corp’s Forcespinning™) have made mass production possible, and therefore, more cost-effective than current processes,” says Wohlers.

Terry Wohlerssays, “These technologies are proof-positive that manufacturing is high-tech, not old-hat; not something just happening overseas. Much of manufacturing is innovation.”

Innovations That Could Change the Way You Manufacture will be a central focus of the BRIDGING THE GAPS: SME Annual Conference scheduled for June 6-8, 2010at the Sheraton Music City Hotel in Nashville, Tenn.The conference will bring together manufacturing professionals and leaders throughout North America and beyond who are interested in innovations and exchanging ideas in one place.

Premier Emerging Tech Forum Offers Matchmaking Prospects for Nanofiber Technology

ForceSpinning™ the Future

http://www.utpa.edu/news/index.cfm?newsid=3883

Utilizing new technology developed by two engineering professors and a team of students, The University of Texas Pan-American announced Nov. 16 the launch of a company that could revolutionize the production of nanofibers used to manufacture a wide range of products and could help transform the Rio Grande Valley into an emerging high-tech industrial and advanced manufacturing center.

 The new company, FibeRio Technology Corporation, will be headed by chairman and Chief Executive Officer Ellery R. Buchanan, an accomplished, Austin-based entrepreneur with more than 25 years experience in strategic and executive management positions in high-tech companies.

Using a new concept of ForceSpinning™ technology invented by UTPA mechanical engineering professors Drs. Karen Lozano and Kamal Sarkar, FibeRio will develop and manufacture machinery that employs centrifugal force – rather than the more costly, current electrospinning technology – to create space age nanofibers from a wider variety of materials than has never before been possible.

Jackie Michel, director of the UTPA Office of Innovation and Intellectual Property, said that by 2014 the new company plans to create about 110 jobs that pay in the range of $100,000, with even greater job creation possibilities into the future.

“UTPA faculty, students and staff have, throughout our history, contributed to the creation of a knowledge-based regional economy through the educational opportunities available to enable our graduates to become more productive citizens and to fill the work force needs of the region,” said Charles A. Sorber, UTPA interim president. “The creation of FibeRio Technology Corporation is an important example of the significantly positive impact the University has on the economy as well as the educational, cultural and social life of the Rio Grande Valley.” UTPA Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Dr. Paul Sale said the company’s launch symbolizes UTPA’s commitment to research that benefits not only students but the regional economy.

“Our University is well positioned to leverage our intellectual resources to advance manufacturing and materials technologies throughout the nation and, indeed, the world,” Sale said.

“UTPA has a mission to move the results of our research into the marketplace. We share monetary returns with our faculty to encourage the disclosure of their inventions in order to maximize the benefits to the community, the University and the Board of Regents of The University Texas System,” said Dr. Wendy Lawrence-Fowler, UTPA vice provost for Research and Sponsored Projects.

James Langabeer, UTPA vice president for Business Affairs, said the creation of FibeRio should “unleash the potential for the spin-off and development of other new companies and products” that will create even more well-paying jobs throughout the Valley in the future. At a time when universities across the country are facing increasingly difficult financial issues, the company may also prove to be a source of future revenue for UTPA, an equity holder in FibeRio.

Michel said there were two paths the University could have taken to commercialize Lozano’s and Sarkar’s ForceSpinning™ technology. It might have licensed the technology to an existing, outside company in exchange for immediate upfront cash and continuing royalties. The other path, which the University decided was the most valuable for all of the stakeholders, was to spin-off its own company, which allows it to retain equity, providing a potentially larger source of continuing income for UTPA.

The professors who developed the technology will also be able to profit from their invention, receiving an equity position and 50 percent of the royalties received, one of the highest returns shared by any university in the nation.

FibeRio Chairman and CEO Buchanan will receive shares in the company, “sweat equity,” as his compensation, Michel said. Buchanan will put together a management team, find investors, create products from the technology and take it to market.

It is projected that between now and 2014 the new company will generate gross revenues of more than $234 million and net a total of nearly $84 million. Michel said that although the company will initially start off with small, lab scale devices developed by Lozano and Sarkar for their research, it will move quickly to develop industrial scale machines that can produce large quantities of nanofibers.

Numerous people, departments and agencies both inside and outside of the University have played key roles in the establishment of the new company. The seed money that professors Lozano and Sarkar needed to develop their ForceSpinning™ technology and produce a prototype of FibeRio’s nanofiber fabrication device was provided late last year through a $50,000 grant from The University of Texas System’s Texas Ignition Fund (TIF), a proof-of-concept grant program designed to stimulate commercialization activities at The UT System’s 15 institutions.

“UTPA’s successful launch of FibeRio Technology Corporation illustrates perfectly the TIF’s mission to help turn research discoveries into commercial products,” said Cathy Swain, The University of Texas System’s assistant vice chancellor of Commercial Development. “The University’s two professors were able to use TIF funds to demonstrate product reliability and to complete a business plan including market entry strategies,” she said.

At that point, Michel was able to step in and “sustain the momentum by attracting a management team that brings us to this moment. We are proud to support this effort,” Swain said.

To help with the startup funding FibeRio needs, the company is competing for a grant of up to $1.5 million from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund (ETF) through its Rio Grande Regional Center for Innovation and Commercialization (RGRCIC), which reviews applications before sending the best to the state for possible funding. The Emerging Technology Fund was created by the state legislature in 2005 to provide money for the development and commercialization of new technologies and attracting and creating jobs in technology fields.

In addition, FibeRio is seeking venture investments to help capitalize its efforts.

John Schrock, UTPA Foundation Board member who is also an ETF board member, said FibeRio is a perfect example of what the ETF board considers for funding.

“One of our requirements at ETF is that there is a public university affiliation. Also, nanotechnology is the current buzz word. A combination of angel investors and the state of Texas could really put this on the map,” Schrock said.

Although, the launching of FibeRio is just being announced, the company has technically already been about two years in the making, beginning with professors Lozano’s and Sarkar’s efforts to develop a better, safer, faster and more economical means of manufacturing nanofibers. The professors were assisted in the development of their new nanofiber manufacturing technology by a team of 20 UTPA undergraduate and graduate engineering students.

Lozano said her initial idea for a new way to produce nanofibers more economically and in a greater yield to conduct her research came from seeing cotton candy being made while at the circus with her children.

“The challenge was to bring it down to the nanoscale,” she said.

“What they came up with is an elegantly simple solution to a complicated problem,” Michel said, adding that “it seems like a very basic concept, but nobody had ever tried it for spinning nanofibers.”

Nanofiber is a term used to describe fibers with diameters less than 0.5 microns that cannot be seen without visual amplification. They typically can be used in the manufacture of medical and filtration materials, wipes, personal care products, clothing materials, insulation, energy storage applications and even cosmetics.

Lozano said some of the medical applications of nanofibers are particularly significant to the local community, which has a high incidence of diabetes causing increased risks of complicated skin and foot wounds.

“I see something for wound healing that will be manufactured through our system,” she said.

The current primary technology for creating nanofibers is a process called electrospinning, which requires an electrostatic charge to elongate and whip the solution being used in the ultrafine fiber.

“Utilizing an electrostatic charge becomes very complicated because the forces are not very well understood and, therefore, are very hard to control. It also limits the range of materials you can process,” Buchanan said. Currently, the primary materials used to make nanofibers are polymers, most of which are common plastics.

“Some of the materials people really want to see in nanofibers are metals, particularly silver because of its antimicrobial properties that destroy small organisms and other metals and conductive polymers that can carry an electrical charge,” Buchanan said. The problem with trying to employ electrospinning using these materials is that “you can’t hit them with an electrostatic charge because you know what happens when you put an electric charge on a metal – it electrocutes everybody,” Buchanan said. That makes electrospinning a process of limited usefulness.

The ForceSpinning™ process invented by Lozano and Sarkar uses centrifugal force to push materials through minute openings to create nanofibers. Because there is no electrical charge employed in their technology, it can be used to produce nanofibers from both the materials that can and can’t be used in the electrospinning process.

Michel said as part of the initial process her office undertakes in regard to intellectual property, four applications were filed in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to protect their original ideas.

The technology is so cutting-edge and disruptive, Michel said, that it has been pre-selected as one of 10 “Early Pick” presenters for the 2010 World’s Best Technologies (WBT) representing Texas. The WBT Showcase, which will be hld March 16-17, 2010 in Arlington, Texas, will offer the companies and research institutions selected to present their technologies to more than 100 seasoned venture insvestors and Fortune 500 liscensing scouts representing a variety of industries looking to invest in new technologies.

For his part, Buchanan is looking forward to what FibeRio could eventually mean to the Rio Grande Valley.

“There is no reason that the area couldn’t be a new technology center similar to the Silicon Valley in California or Research Triangle Park in North Carolina,” he said.

Local economic development and Chamber of Commerce officials present at the announcement seemed equally optimistic.

This is a long time in coming. This really helps put us on that path toward applied technology and applied research that gets transferred into the workplace,” said Steve Ahlenius, president and CEO of the McAllen (Texas) Chamber of Commerce.

Sorber said he sees this milestone as just the beginning.

“Many UTPA faculty members along with our graduate and undergraduate students are involved in research that is already impacting or will impact the quality of life for the residents of South Texas,” he said. “That is what a university is all about.”

Expecting recovery, Santana set to launch first phase

By JOEY GOMEZ

Published: Wednesday, January 20, 2010 2:47 PM CST

A year-and-a-half’s worth of delays are over.

Representatives from Brazil-based Santana Textiles say they are looking forward to 2010 as a year of recovery in the U.S., and as the eventual staging year for operations of their first facility in North America.

Santana is currently soliciting bids for construction of their proposed 500,000-square-foot complex, which will be completed in four phases over the next five years. The company is slated to invest $170 million in Edinburg and employ 800 workers.

The Edinburg Economic Development Corporation, along with officials from Santana, held a roundtable with reporters last week to talk about phase I of their upcoming facility. From its onset, the plant will produce 1.3 million yards of denim per month, enough for more than one million jeans, which will be distributed to high-profile jeans manufacturers like Levis and American Eagle, according to Santana.

Edinburg’s plant will be Santana’s sixth, and most technologically advanced facility to date, according to the EDC. The company currently has four plants in Brazil and one in Argentina. The company will work with FibeRio, located within UTPA’s Rapid Response Manufacturing Center (RRMC), to research and potentially develop new materials as Santana’s plant begins production.

“Technology is important, and it’s the reason we are here,” Santana CEO Roberto Cantu told reporters at the meeting. “The Rapid Response Center has a very interesting department (FibeRio) working with nano-technology. We saw a lot of opportunities to work together and find new technologies, including those for our business, which is of course denim … maybe we can use some of this technology here. I have never seen this, and it’s very professional.”

Santana’s plant will be a “living” entity complete with it’s own water treatment facility to be located onsite of the complex, according to Cantu. The facility will include state-of-the-art air filtration, along with technology for humidity controlled production of denim, he said. The facility will also be regulated under the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to control the plant’s particles per square meter for the safety of employees.

“One of the interesting things about cotton production is how technical it actually is. In the factory, one of the biggest things they can do is control humidity because the higher the humidity, the less resistant the thread is,” said Pedro Salazar, EEDC executive director. “When you’re running it through a machine if the thread breaks, then you have to stop the machine and put it together and that creates an imperfection in the material. So there are all these little technical things they have to do to try to keep the production going and keeping the quality there.”

In July 2008, Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced plans to invest $1.65 million through the Texas Enterprise Fund (TEF) to assist Santana in building the denim manufacturing plant in Edinburg. But a significant size increase of the plant, by more than 200,000 square feet, coupled with an economic recession in 2008 left city officials and Santana representatives scrambling to finance the project in four phases.

The project had been delayed for nearly a year and half before high-level discussions with Perry in Austin last month finalized the project for construction. Meetings with the governor focused on production details, global economics, market share, labor costs, transportation costs, and economic stability, according to attendees present at the meeting. Among those in the series of meetings were Santana representatives, Edinburg Mayor Richard Garcia, Texas Economic Development Bank CFO Michael Chrobak, Michael Bryant, an assistant general counsel in the governor’s office, and Jerry Haddican, state Sen. Juan Hinojosa’s Austin office.

“When we announced with the governor (Perry) and former mayor Joe Ochoa, it was the very beginning of the project and that moment the economical situation was very different. As everybody knows, the economic conditions were the reasons we spent a little more time to start the plan,” Cantu said. “To be honest, we took this year as an experience because after the problem in the U.S. … we think this year is the reason for recovery. And next year, when our production is ready, that will be the grow up year for the U.S. That means our production and our sales can be much better than the are today. Our expectations are very good.”

Construction should begin no later than Feb. 18, albeit with little fanfare as an official groundbreaking isn’t planned for phase I of the upcoming facility, according to the Edinburg Economic Development Corporation.

“Once they get that (bid), they are going to go ahead and make an evaluation at that point. I don’t know if they are going to have a groundbreaking. I think who ever they hire, they’re just going to go on and start moving dirt. I think everybody just wants to get it going, and I think they are going to do that,” said City manager Ramiro Garza.

Launch of FibeRio Technology Corporation

November 16, 2009 Edinburg, Tx – Semiconductor veteran and serial entrepreneur Ellery Buchanan today announced the launch of FibeRio Technology Corporation, a company formed to integrate proprietary Forcespinning™ technology into equipment and manufacturing processes for the fabrication of polymeric, metallic, and ceramic nanofibers.

 FibeRio has exclusively licensed Forcespinning™ technology, which utilizes centrifugal force and proprietary spinnerets to initiate the formation of nanofibers, from The University of Texas-Pan American. The revolutionary technology overcomes many of the drawbacks to the volatile electrospinning method, which requires a massive electrical charge and corrosive solvents to form and draw fibers onto a substrate. Having been chosen as an “Early Pick” to the World’s Best Technology Showcase in March, Forcespinning™ is already receiving considerable attention.

 “The range of nanofiber applications and the size of those respective markets are very impressive. However, the full potential of nanofibers is severely limited by the lack of a viable fabrication platform,” said president and CEO Buchanan. “In delivering the highest quality equipment and manufacturing processes that utilize Forcespinning™ technology, FibeRio Technology Corporation will transform the materials market through the unlimited availability of nanofibers,”

 Previous to his recent move into the field of nanofibers, Buchanan founded and operated as CEO of several semiconductor companies including NanoVance, Inc. and Integrated Solutions, Inc., a manufacturer of lithography equipment for the semiconductor industry. He also served in executive roles for the New Jersey Nanotechnology Consortium and Ultratech Stepper, Inc.

 Edward Peno, co-founder and COO, noted the impressive production yields facilitated by Forcespinning’s™ high performance in melt-spinning. “The innovation behind Forcespinning™ technology is the drive for simplicity in fiber formation. In this respect, the inventors were very successful and the end result is equipment and processes with production yields that are unmatched in the field of nanofibers.”

 Peno has 35 years of global manufacturing experience and has served as executive director for TRW Automotive and director at Allied Signal Safety Restraints. He went on to say that, “FibeRio will quickly respond to the nanofiber market with product offerings that provide the research community with versatile production capabilities and the nonwovens industry with dramatically higher system level production capacities that will escalate the commercialization of nanofiber applications.”

 FibeRio will initially provide equipment for nanofiber research as it quickly scales up Forcespinning™ technology to industrial production.

FibeRio Technology Corporation an “Early Pick” for Global Technology Forum

FibeRio Technology has been selected as the first presenter at the World’s Best Technology Showcase

Edinburg-based FibeRio Technology Corporation is one of a handful of “Early Pick” presenters pre-selected for the 2010 WBTshowcase (WBT2010), a prestigious global investment and licensing forum. WBT2010 will be held from March 16-17 in Arlington-DFW, Texas.

FibeRio’s Forcespinning™ technology, which fabricates nanofibers at rates at least twice as high as alternative methods, will compete with more than 100 other presenting companies and research institutions at WBT2010.

Produced in cooperation with the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), the Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC), Southeastern universities Research Association (SURA), and the National Association of Seed and Venture Funds (NASVF); the WBTshowcase is the world’s premier forum exposing innovative technologies emerging and converging from top universities, labs and research institutions. Participating technologies represent sectors including energy, life and materials science, IT and nanotechnology.

“The WBT Showcase is a great opportunity for FibeRio to highlight the unprecedented versatility and the dramatic increase in system level productive capacity that will make Forcespinning™ ‘The Force For Nanofibers,” said FibeRio’s CEO Ellery Buchanan.

Each WBT2010 presenter is mentored by industry pros to hone their pitch and overall investment or licensing opportunity. A panel of onsite judges, comprised of angel, seed and early stage venture investors and Fortune 500 tech scouts, will determine the forum’s “Best of Show” Award winner.

“Our early pool of submissions reflect the level of quality deal flow that is resulting from the major upswing in national and regional R&D investment,” said Paul Huleatt, WBTshowcase CEO. “At the same time, we’re seeing emerging and converging companies and solutions that no longer fit neatly within in a single industry category. It’s an exciting time for investors and licensees alike.”

According to Mr. Huleatt, one in three WBT presenters goes on to secure venture funding, license their technology, or sell their IP outright, representing over $450 Million raised to date.

ABOUT FibeRio Technology Corporation
FibeRio Technology Corporations is transforming the materials market through the unlimited availability of nanofibers. By incorporating the proprietary Forcespinning™ technology into equipment and manufacturing processes, the company is providing researchers with versatile production capabilities and the nonwovens industry with dramatically increased system level production capacities that will escalate the commercialization of nanofiber applications. These key elements make FibeRio Technology Corporation The Force for Nanofibers!

ABOUT WBTshowcase
The WBTshowcase is the world’s premier event exposing undiscovered, revolutionary energy, life and materials science, IT and nanotechnologies emerging from top universities, labs and research institutions. Each WBT is a nearly year-long collaborative effort resulting in deals vetted and mentored by investors and licensees for investors and licensees. The WBT offers an unparalleled forum that is deal-focused with a proven track record of meeting the converging market needs of the future. www.wbtshowcase.com
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