ASU-affiliated startups to vie for funding, relationships at Jan. 31

This January, entrepreneurs with a tie to Arizona State University will present their startups with hopes of gaining access to benefits offered by a university-affiliated investor network that is holding its third pitch event of the fiscal year.

InvestU, a program of ASU Enterprise Partners, serves as a strategic venture network for companies with a tie to ASU, including the Thunderbird School of Global Management at ASU. The network’s goal is to provide a platform for startups to raise capital through its angel investors and leverage resources across ASU’s global entrepreneurial ecosystem.

InvestU angel investors, entrepreneurs and community partners listen to startups present their business plans in 2023. Photo by Terrance Balousek/ASU
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“One of the main elements we focus on with these pitch events is highlighting new, innovative companies in our community,” said Louise Hardman, director of RealmSpark and investor engagement for ASU Enterprise Partners.

On Jan. 31, entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to pitch their startups to an audience of investors, fellow entrepreneurs and community partners, with the ultimate goal of generating seed funding and gaining access to new networking opportunities with InvestU.

The event will feature at least three early-stage companies developing innovative solutions in various sectors.

Two pitch events held last fall featured eight startup founder presentations and attracted more than $300,000 in angel investment. In November, InvestU partnered with Wexford Science and Technology to host a pitch event focused on health care technologies.

Lenoss Medical won first place in the event and was awarded a credit for space at Connect Labs by Wexford in Phoenix. The prize incentivized Lenoss to set up an office in Arizona, further driving the diversification of ASU’s entrepreneurial ecosystem and enabling future growth of the company in Arizona.

Lenoss, based in Bristol, Rhode Island, has developed a biological solution to treat patients suffering from osteoporotic spinal fractures.

“InvestU was designed to leverage the strength and scale of ASU’s network and accelerate the growth of affiliated startups. Collaborating with Wexford Science and Technology to provide a space like Connect Labs is a large part of that,” Hardman said.

Connect Labs, in the 850 PBC building in downtown Phoenix, provides companies with a coworking environment tailored to health care research and development, providing opportunities for growth and collaboration.

“Arizona is a key market for us, with a rapidly increasing aging population and a huge need for solutions for the treatment of osteoporosis-related issues. We are extremely excited to now have an office in the heart of Phoenix,” said Dom Messerli, president and CEO of Lenoss Medical. “Within the Connect Labs community, we anticipate making many relevant connections to help us connect and grow our business in the area.”

The pitch event helped Lenoss find new investment potential and experience that comes with the InvestU network. Participation gave companies different resources to support the growth of their businesses.

“InvestU unlocked several key investors in the area, which have the potential to unlock even more funding during our current Series A round,” Messerli said. “We have made not only one, but three connections with potential investment groups, and we are excited for the expert advice they provide.”

Serva Energy also participated in the last pitch event. A nuclear technology company that developed a novel method for producing cancer-destroying isotope actinium-225, Serva Energy was founded in 2017 with the support of an ASU faculty member. The company was originally designed to create accident-tolerant fuel sources. After a few years of development, the company pivoted toward utilizing the technology it created in isolating medical isotopes to treat cancer and other diseases.

“Actinium-225 is kind of the Goldilocks of isotopes right now,” said Sarah Jones, vice president of medical with Serva Energy. “It is showing really promising results, and it has incredibly positive capabilities through destroying cancer cells.”

In practice, the isotope would be attached to cancerous cells within the body, and through the natural process of radioactive decay, it would effectively destroy the cells.

Serva Energy also benefited from InvestU’s resources and investment opportunities.

“Pitch events like this are doing a really fantastic job of growing the biotech endeavors and activities in Arizona,” Jones said. “The reason I pushed for us to participate in this event is because it is important for us to make those connections here in this community.”

Jones earned her PhD in clinical psychology from ASU in 2002 and an executive master’s degree in global management from Thunderbird in 2022.

To learn more about InvestU and reserve your spot at the upcoming startup pitch event on Jan. 31, contact InvestU@asuep.org.

Over 1,500 Americans are still unaccounted for from the Vietnam War; 48 of those Americans are in Cambodia, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, or DPAA.

The DPAA is working with archaeologists at Arizona State University on a pilot project that uses an archaeological data repository, artificial intelligence and geographic information systems to conduct comparative analyses of where missing war personnel may be located in Cambodia. 

Aerial view of an excavation site after the brush has been cleared in Cambodia, 2022. Excavation conducted by Ohio Valley Archaeology Inc in partnership with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.

“The project, ‘Comparative Digital Archaeological Project,’ leverages existing data from missing personnel cases across Cambodia, conducted over decades, as a pilot effort,” said Jesse Stephen, deputy director of the partnerships and innovation directorate at DPAA.

“The goal of the study is to improve DPAA’s ability to interrogate and understand how temporal, spatial and environmental factors influence the potential recovery of archaeological materials, and ensure that every case is comprehensively understood as potential avenues towards recovery and identification are considered now and in the future,” Stephen said.

The government is working with the Digital Archaeology Record, or tDAR, a digital repository housed within the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at ASU. An important part of this project is collecting and organizing hard-copy DPAA documents and creating new datasets, explained Christopher Nicholson, associate research professor and director of the Center for Digital Antiquity where tDAR is housed. 

Another part of the project was getting geographic information systems data of site locations of past DPAA recovery activities in Cambodia to serve as a case study for developing a probability model, he said. Anthropological archaeologist Brian McCray joined the ASU team as a postdoctoral scholar to help. 

“Brian used these site locations to build a probability model that maps where in Cambodia there is a low, medium or high likelihood of having a successful recovery mission,” Nicholson said.

“Brian’s model is different from traditional archaeological predictive models, as these usually focus on a discrete human behavior that can be statistically modeled. In this case, aircraft crash locations are random, and the odds or chance of a successful recovery mission are co-dependent on environmental variables — soils, slope, rainfall, vegetation, etc. — along with attributes of the aircraft — e.g., more likely to find remains in a sturdier aircraft, or if there is ordinance on the plane.”

With an interest in spatial modeling and digital archaeology, McCray explains this project is an example of how data can help make decisions about how to allocate resources toward sites that are more likely to have good preservation.

“The key takeaway for the general public would be that digitized archaeological data from previous projects, such as reports and project locations, can be put to further use to help predict the success of future projects and that it is much more likely to be helpful when it is digital and interoperable,” McCray said. 

Phase one of the pilot project is finished. In phase two, Nicholson said they hope to further refine and develop the utility of the dataset.

The team is currently looking for a postdoctoral research scholar for phase two. Those interested can find additional information here.