Each week, we’ll round up startup news from the UNC journalism students behind North Carolina Business News Wire. To read all of the students’ work covering public and private companies around the state, sign up for the daily newsletter.
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Wilmington-based Petrics raises over $650,000
By Addison Lalier
Petrics Inc., a North Carolina-based pet technology startup, raised over $650,000 in a private equity offering, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Petrics is a pet health company that develops digital products and software that allows owners to manage, track and respond to their pets’ health needs.
The Petrics mobile app is the company’s first product. It includes information on food ingredients, nutrition data and sends owners alerts of upcoming appointments, food recalls and medication refills. The app is not yet available for download.
Founded in 2015, the company intends to raise a total of $673,753, with $21,295 remaining to be sold, through eight investors.
In early 2018, Petrics will launch the first smart bed that offers a climate control feature and tracks your pet’s weight and activity. The bed will connect to the Activity Tracker in the mobile app.
Petrics did not disclose what it intended to do with the funds.
Companies relying on a Reg D exemption do not have to register their offering of securities with the SEC, but they must file what’s known as a Form D electronically with the SEC after they first sell their securities.
The filing can be found here.
Product Recovery Technology raises another $1.3 million
By Meghan Siegmund
Product Recovery Technology Inc., which breaks down used rubber products, has raised another $1.3 million in a private equity offering, according to a Thursday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Franklinton-based company previously raised $1.17 million in June and $1.3 million in March of this year.
The company has a $600,000 left to raise to meet its goal of of $5 million. According to the filing, the money was raised by 37 investors.
Product Recovery Technology, which acquired solar thermal company Holocene Technologies in 2016, is led by Chief Executive Officer Jason Williams.
Williams founded Urgent Cares of America in 2001, where he served as president and CEO until 2010.
“Other than the payment of salaries and other compensation and benefits, no officer, director or promoter will receive any payments from the proceeds of this offering,” said the company in the filing.
PRTI was founded in 2013 and has one facility in Franklinton. The company’s patented rubber depolymerization system fractionalizes rubber and tire waste into syngas, steel, oil and carbon products.
The company has partnered with Raleigh-based Causam Energy to use its EnergyNet software to sell its distributed energy back to the power grid through local utilities across North America.
Companies relying on a Reg D exemption do not have to register their offering of securities with the SEC, but they must file what’s known as a Form D electronically after they first sell their securities.
Durham-based Veritas Collaborative raises almost $9 million
By Lindsey Welch
Veritas Collaborative Holdings LLC, a company that focuses on the treatment on eating disorders, has raised $8.7 million in a private equity offering, according to a filing Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
This is not the first time the Durham-based organization has received funding. In 2015, it raised $9.1 million to expand in Durham with a new treatment facility.
No manager, officer, director, or promoter will receive payments from the proceeds of the offering, except in the case of salaries or benefits, according to the filing.
The company is led by by founder and chief executive officer Stacie McEntyre. McEntyre previously worked as the executive director of Carolina House, a residential eating disorder treatment center.
She partnered with Chase Bannister to co-found Veritas in 2012. In addition to Durham, it has locations in Richmond and Atlanta.
Veritas offers a child and adolescent treatment program, as well as an adult treatment program.
Private companies relying on a Reg D exemption do not have to register their offering of securities with the SEC, but must file a Form D electronically with the SEC after they sell their securities.
UNC-CH professor, KindHeart founders apply for patent for trauma simulator
By Olivia Schaber
Four people affiliated with UNC-Chapel Hill applied for a patent for a modular staged simulator and process of simulating medical trauma, according to a filing Thursday with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
The patent is for an invention directed to a modular staged simulator and a process of simulating medical trauma and maladies for the purpose of training or certifying individuals, including medical professionals.
Richard Feins, W. Andrew Grubbs, Alexander Grubbs and Matthew Dedmon filed the patent in July.
Feins is a professor of surgery and medical director of perioperative services at UNC Hospitals. He was principal investigator of an eight-institution research study funded by AHRQ aimed at finding out whether simulation training for cardiothoracic surgery resident physicians can help improve patient safety.
Feins is also the co-founder and scientific advisor of KindHeart Inc., a Chapel Hill-based company whose goal is to provide realistic demonstration environments for abdominal, thoracic and cardiac surgical procedures. He received his M.D. from the University of Vermont College of Medicine.
Andrew Grubbs is the co-founder and president of KindHeart.
In 2011, KindHeart developed technology for a complete cardiac surgery simulation system that made a real pig heart behave like a human heart during open-heart surgery.
Dedmon received his M.D. from UNC School of Medicine in 2011. He was a Loyalty Fund Scholar at UNC.
Alexander Grubbs has previously applied for patents with Andrew Grubbs, Dedmon and Fein.
Raleigh-based Constellation receives $3 million investment
By Emily Brice
Constellation Digital Partners LLC announced Wednesday that it has received a $3 million investment from Kinecta Federal Credit Union, a credit union based out of Manhattan Beach, California.
Constellation CEO Kristopher Kovacs closed the investment with Kinecta CEO Keith Sultemeier during the week of Oct. 16.
Raleigh-based Constellation has been developing a cloud-based software for credit unions. In July, it received a $3 million investment from Teachers Credit Union, based in South Bend, Indiana.
The company has been in a three-year research and development process. Kovacs was given a patent for his technology in May 2017. He saw a fundamental problem in the world of modern digital finance for credit unions that stemmed from the structured relationship they had with digital banking providers.
To date, eight credit unions, totaling $20 billion in assets and a user base of over 1.5 million, have partnered with this platform.
“We believe that Constellation can be a huge in modernizing the credit union industry,” said Sultemeier in a statement. “The open platform gives the industry potentially new sources of innovation, as well as means for easy collaboration between credit unions.”
App and digital service developers can also use this platform by creating titles, or services, and then credit unions can seek out and select services within the marketplace. There are a total of 21 digital service providers that have committed to creating services for the marketplace.
Raleigh-based WasteZero raises another $800,000
By Olivia Schaber
WasteZero Inc., a waste-reduction company, has raised another $800,000 in equity, according to a filing Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Earlier this month, the Raleigh-based company raised $1.2 million.
WasteZero has reached its prior goal of raising $2 million and still has to raise $1 million in order to reach the company’s new goal of $3 million.
The company raised the money from 20 investors, according to the filing.
WasteZero had raised $1.5 million in June, $3.3 million in 2016 for working capital and another $7 million in 2015, according to SEC filings.
Founded in 1991, WasteZero partners with more than 800 municipalities, state agencies and private organizations to help them reduce waste and increase recycling rates.
It designs, implements and runs pay-as-you-throw programs, which it calls WasteZero Trash Metering programs. Instead of paying a flat fee for waste disposal, consumers are charged based on the amount of trash they throw away.
The pay-as-you-throw program, called WasteZero Trash Metering, has resulted in cutting its consumers solid waste by 44 percent annually.
Mark Dancy is the president of WasteZero. Prior to becoming president, he was WasteZero’s vice president of sales and marketing as well as the manager of manufacturing. In May 2012, the South Carolina Department of Commerce recognized Dancy as a South Carolina Ambassador for Economic Development.
Companies relying on a Reg D exemption do not have to register their offering of securities with the SEC, but they must file what’s known as a Form D electronically after they first sell their securities.
Raleigh-based sports marketing firm raises over $1 million
By Emily Brice
Capstone Event Group LLC, a North Carolina-based marketing company, raised more than $1 million in a private debt offering, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Wednesday.capstone event group
The company filed the Form D on Oct. 25 and it did not disclose what it intended to do with the funds.
Capstone Event Group is a sports marketing and event management company. The company operates over 20 marathons and half marathons in 14 different states. Some of their brands include the City of Oaks Marathon, the Myrtle Beach Marathon, the Charleston Marathon, Race 13.1 and the Resort Races Collection.
John Kane founded the company in 2011. He graduated from North Carolina State University in 2007 with a B.S. in sports management.
Companies relying on a Reg D exemption do not have to register their offering of securities with the SEC, but they must file what’s known as a Form D electronically with the SEC after they first sell their securities.
The filing can be found by here.
RumbleOn raises $14.5 million in stock offering
By Charlotte Chilton
RumbleOn Inc. has raised $14.5 million in a stock offering, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Charlotte-based online retailer of used motorcycles announced a price of $5.50 per share of an underwritten public offering of 2.91 million shares of class B common stock.
Roth Capital Partners and Maxim Group LLC acted as joint book-running managers for the offering and have been granted a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 436,500 shares of class B common stock until Nov. 19.
RumbleOn filed for an initial public offering on Sept. 1 and began trading shares on Nasdaq under the symbol RMBL on Oct. 19.
RumbleOn is currently trading at $4.65, a 3.33 percent increase since the market opened on Wednesday.
