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Two More Technology Companies Graduate from TechRanch – HyPerspectives and MPA Technologies to Expand Operations in Bozeman

Proving that good things happen in threes, TechRanch, Montana’s high tech entrepreneurial center, announced today that two more client companies – HyPerspectives http://hyperspectives.net/ and MPA Technologies http://www.mpatechnologies.com – are graduating from its entrepreneurial program, totaling three for the year with the launch of Bacterin in March 2003.

Collectively, this year’s graduates will create between 25-35 new technology careers in the Bozeman area in the next two years. All three companies have strong ties to Montana State University and plan to hire graduates and residents fulfilling the TechRanch commitment to create high-paying jobs and reduce Montana’s “brain drain”.

According to TechRanch CEO John O’Donnell, “These three companies are doing great things for the state of Montana by bringing high paying, clean technology jobs to the state. As a result, they are helping retain our university graduates and add value to our economy.” O’Donnell also noted, “MPA and Hyperspectives are models for the types of companies with whom TechRanch likes to work – they are innovative, forward-thinking entrepreneurs who will be very successful in bringing their technology to national and international markets.”

MPA Technologies (MPAT) was founded in 2001 and is a privately-held company that currently employs one and a half full-time employees, two part-time employees, and three MSU affiliates. MPAT became a TechRanch resident client in 2001 and has recently moved out of the TechRanch office space to a new location – 2100 Fairway Drive, Ste. 104. CEO and MSU scientist Charles Spangler says that it currently has four employees and four or five more who are ready to jump on board. In the next two years, he predicts the company will grow to 10 or 15 employees. In early 2003, TechRanch helped MPA secure seed stage funding from Pacific Horizon Ventures, a Seattle-based venture capital firm. Visit at: http://www.mpatechnologies.com

According to CEO Charles Spangler, “TechRanch provided MPA with the necessary business assistance concerning incorporation, intellectual property, legal services, accounting services, and introductions to both Angel and Venture Capital groups. Whatever success we may eventually attain, TechRanch will have been an extremely important early contributor.”

Marc Richards, Business Manager for HyPerspectives said of TechRanch, “Everything I’ve seen and experienced at TechRanch says this is the place for technology entrepreneurs in Montana. They truly understand the need and challenges facing start-up companies in Montana.”

HyPerspectives, a TechRanch client for two years, was founded March of 2001. Currently, HyPerspectives employs five full-time employees, with an additional six seasonal employees. Over the next five years, HyPerspectives’ Marc Richards anticipates that the company will grow to 10 full-time employees, with an additional 10 seasonal employees. Recently, HyPerspectives moved into a new office space located at 2048 Analysis Drive – Suite C in Bozeman. Visit at: http://hyperspectives.net/

HyPerspectives and MPAT will remain part of the TechRanch “family” of technology companies who receive ongoing business counsel, connections to investors and service providers, comprehensive, pro bono research from the MSU College of Business students who participate in the TechRanch Center for Entrepreneurship for the New West, as well as ready access to entrepreneurial training programs such as seminars and brown bags. “When we graduate a company, we like to think that we’re not losing a client, but rather Montana’s gaining another solid technology company,” said John O’Donnell.

About MPA Technologies:

In 2001, Charles Spangler, MSU physicist Alexsander Rebane, and former MSU grad student Eric Nickel discovered chemicals compounds that have longer wavelength absorptions – a significant discovery that may allow doctors to use longer wavelengths in photodynamic therapy to non-invasively treat and diagnose solid-state cancerous tumors. In photodynamic therapy, the patient ingests a certain kind of compound that migrates to the tumor cells inside the body. The tumor cells are killed when activated by a laser light beam outside the body. To date, the FDA has only approved a small number of compounds for photodynamic treatment, none of which work on tumors located more than a few millimeters under the skin – due to the approved compound’s short wavelength absorption properties.

The capital from Pacific Horizon Ventures will enable MPA to test whether or not the chemical compound migrates only to the tumor and not to nearby healthy tissue. The company also must ensure that the compounds are non-toxic, that the compounds enter and quickly leave the body, and that the compound’s tumor-killing properties can be laser activated deep inside the body. Because of all the testing that must take place, Spangler noted that the next nine to 15 months are critical for the company. If the testing stage goes as planned, the remaining work that would need to be done until approved by the FDA could take up to 11 years.

About HyPerspectives:

HyPerspectives, with its remote sensing experts – trained in ecology and earth sciences – takes a unique “man-in-loop” approach that has resulted in processes, procedures, and algorithms that have allowed it to achieve levels of feature measurement previously unachievable in the remote sensing world. In short, it has developed a method that has changed the way landscape features over large areas are measured and assessed. HyPerspective’s services – measuring and assessing landscape features – are provided to the military and natural resource managers throughout the US. The needs for HyPerspectives’ services are numerous – national security, forestry, fire/fuel emergency planning and response management, watershed water quality, stream and riparian assessment, and invasive weed identification.

Visit http://www.hyperspectives.net

About TechRanch:
TechRanch, a Montana technology venture center, is designed to merge proprietary technologies and entrepreneurship to produce sustainable, profitable ventures. Based in Bozeman, Montana, TechRanch connects new business ventures and entrepreneurs with a comprehensive network of business advisors, public and private investment channels, Montana State Universities (MSU) entrepreneurial development programs, and technologies for commercialization from MSU, NASA, and the DoD. TechRanch’s support programs for technology ventures assist entrepreneurs in building successful organizations outside major financial markets, which in turn produce new businesses that further the development of Montana’s economy. Since its inception in January of 2001, TechRanch has helped three companies graduate from its incubator. More information on TechRanch, a tax-exempt corporation, and the opportunities for business development in the state of Montana can be found online at http://www.techranch.org.

Media Contact – Bridget Cavanaugh, 406.320.5000

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