GRAND RAPIDS ? Members of the Grand Angels did their third deal last week, this time investing an undisclosed sum in Kalamazoo biopharmaceutical company ProNAi Therapeutics. They were joined in the $2 million deal by The Apjohn Group and Apjohn Ventures fund.
ProNAi is located at the Southwest Michigan Innovation Center, a life sciences accelerator established under the leadership of Southwest Michigan First. A Grand Angels spokeswoman declined to say how much her members invested. Mina Sooch from ApJohn said the investment in ProNAi totaled $2 million.
?We?re thrilled to be partnering not only with such a talented group of scientists, but with our investment colleagues just down the road in Kalamazoo,?? said Grand Angels President Jody Vanderwel. ?Collaboration statewide will be imperative to building our new knowledge-driven economy.?
ProNAi is a pre-clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on bringing to market novel Nucleic Acid inhibitors. The company intends to initially use their technology to combat prostate cancer and Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (NHL) with human clinical trials starting as early as 2006.
The Grand Angels was convened in January of 2004 by former Grand Bank Founder and CEO Chuck Stoddard. Membership has grown from eight founders to approximately 40 members.
Grand Angels made its second investment, an undisclosed sum in Salamander Technologies, a Traverse City start up that develops software to track personnel and resources for fire incident commanders and other first responders.
The group?s first investment was in SimpleDine, formed in 2003. SimpleDine launched its food ordering system in East Lansing earlier this year with menus from 16 Michigan State University-area restaurants. With financial backing from Grand Angels, SimpleDine plans to help pizza junkies living near Grand Valley State University and Calvin College. SimpleDine recently relocated from East Lansing to an office in the Brass Works Building in downtown Grand Rapids.
For more information, click on GrandAngels.Org
