20 Jul MDC "Venture Debt" loans help fund tech firms
Madison, Wis. – Madison Development Corp. (MDC) reported Wednesday that is has made $600,000 in new “Venture Debt” loans to three Madison technology companies since starting its new Venture Debt Fund this year, including one loan made earlier this month.
MDC, a non-profit development company, started the Venture Debt Fund to help technology businesses stretch local venture capital dollars. Since starting the fund earlier this year, it has loaned $200,000 each to GenTel Biosurfaces Inc., NeoClone LLC, and TrafficCast, Inc.
The most recent loan, to TrafficCast, was closed this month and will help the company develop its array of products and services for the delivery of real-time traffic data for media, desktop, and mobile devices, MDC reported.
According to Connie Li, vice president and co-founder of TrafficCast, “We are at a critical stage of development, and the MDC Venture Debt Fund has enabled the company to move beyond preliminary applications and engineering to deploy a wider range of commercial products. To have such support here in the community is a significant advantage for Madison-based entrepreneurs. We believe it will help us achieve our vision to become the national traffic information supplier of choice, and to build a significant business with meaningful jobs here in Madison.”
MDC’s Venture Debt Fund has more than $1 million still available for tech businesses in Dane County, noted Frank Staniszewski, president of MDC.
Staniszewski said “there has been quite a bit of interest” in the fund, which focuses on companies that have revenues but not sufficient cash flow to break even.
Much of the interest has come from the biotech sector, which MDC anticipated, Staniszewski said. “But we have been surprised to see a renewed interest from the information sciences area,” he said, noting the TrafficCast financing and another information sciences project that MDC is currently reviewing.
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