FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 5, 2013
Traycer Completes $5 Million Financing Led by Phoenix Venture Partners
Funding will Accelerate Technology and Product Development
COLUMBUS – Traycer Diagnostic Systems, Inc, (Traycer), a leader in terahertz imaging systems and components, has raised a $5 M financing round to advance its technology and product development. Phoenix Venture Partners (PVP), a venture capital firm with extensive domain expertise in advanced materials and optics entrepreneurship, led the investment. Proceeds will be used to complete product commercialization of Traycer’s industry leading, real-time, broadband terahertz imaging systems and components.
“Traycer is pleased to welcome PVP to our extended team. With PVP’s successful track record of providing development and strategic assistance to start ups like Traycer, as well as its broad industrial end-user/partner network, PVP is a perfect fit for accelerating our efforts,” said Brad Beasecker, Traycer founder and CEO.
Traycer’s novel imaging system can instantaneously capture terahertz images for quality control, inspection, and security screening applications. Also of great benefit is that the ease of use, form factor and cost point are similar to high-end digital cameras. Moreover, the images are delivered in real-time, which is critical for industries needing immediate, continuous, production-line inspection capabilities.
Traycer is emerging as the preferred system and component provider for imaging, detection, and analysis for researchers and application developers seeking cost-effective terahertz solutions. The terahertz market is expected to grow 35 percent per year over the next 10 years to approximately $1 billion. Traycer enables applications beyond even these projections and is positioned to be the leader in this growing market.
Traycer’s Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Dr. Lee Mosbacker, added that “PVP’s deep domain expertise in advanced materials and optics innovation provides key supplier relationships which will significantly drive efficiencies in product development.”
“Traycer’s technology offers the first real opportunity to bring terahertz to a broad set of applications ranging from quality control to defense,” said Dr. Frank Levinson, venture partner and co-founder at PVP. “Traycer’s unique approach improves sensitivity, measurement speed, and provides image resolutions that were impossible in the past thereby opening up multi-billion dollar markets for this wavelength band.”
“PVP is looking forward to working with Traycer to accelerate its leading terahertz position. We see multiple significant industrial applications for terahertz that were not possible before Traycer,” added Dr. Zach Jonasson, General Partner at PVP.
In conjunction with the financing, Dr. Levinson and Dr. Jonasson will join the Traycer’s Board of Directors.
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Traycer Diagnostic Systems, Inc. is a spinout from The Ohio State University and the University of Notre Dame that received initial funding from TechColumbus and the Ohio Tech Angel Funds. It has built the first terahertz imager that will enable real-time, cost effective imaging for commercial applications and research. The patent pending imager is a platform technology with multiple industry applications including quality control (materials & devices), non-destructive testing, communications infrastructure, medical imaging, and security screening applications. Traycer’s core technology enables the terahertz imaging of the future, today.
Phoenix Venture Partners is a leading venture capital firm that invests in and partners with entrepreneurs to commercialize breakthrough materials science and optics innovations. PVP’s team has a track record of founding, building and investing in successful materials science and optics start-ups. The firm’s investment strategy is flexible and predicated on assisting entrepreneurs with customer and supply chain partnerships, business development, as well as strategic and operational support. A select set of forward-looking global corporations collaborate with PVP on business development and innovation interests. PVP is based in Silicon Valley with satellite offices in Singapore and Cambridge, MA.
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