Seedling Enterprises Launches Innovative MedicalDevice Incubator.

Business/Technology Editors and Health/Medical Writers

NEWTON, Mass.--(BW HealthWire)--April 19, 2000

Seedling Enterprises, LLC announces today that it has raised more than $3 million in capital to form a company providing a unique approach for early stage investment in the development of innovative medical technologies.

Unlike traditional incubators, which simply finance inventors, Seedling Enterprises will acquire technologies and internally support their development until an appropriate exit is reached. Seedling's management includes three highly experienced health care business executives with broad knowledge in the clinical, economic, and engineering aspects of medical devices. Co-founders Josh Tolkoff, Andy Levine and John Cvinar together bring over 65 years of medical device experience to the new venture.

Early stage funding and development expertise are difficult to find in today's medical technology industry. Seedling will help to fill this void in that it provides inventors with a source for research support, development engineering resources, market assessment capability and financing to move ideas quickly early concept to proof-of-principle. "Seedling will provide an attractive opportunity for both the inventor and the investor who has an appreciation for the high potential opportunities," comments Joseph Ciffolillo former Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Boston Scientific Corporation (NYSE:BSX).

Private funding was raised from medical device executives with ties to many of the large, local medical companies, venture capitalists with ties to the medical device industry and several seed funds. Allan Ferguson, one of several venture capital partners participating as individual investors, comments concerning the current state of medical device investment: "The investment community is currently quite cautious, even hesitant about early stage medical device investments. Independent of this current situation, the venture community invests in companies, not in product opportunities. There is a constant stream of new ideas therefore, that do not have a home. Among this unsupported stream, there are significant opportunities available if one has the commitment and the mechanism to analyze and determine which have merit plus a process to create value."

To aid in the development of new technologies, Seedling has entered a partnership with ACT Medical, a successful medical device engineering and manufacturing company in Newton, Massachusetts and Santa Clara, California. ACT Medical will provide engineering and support services to Seedling, allowing the company to minimize start-up and infrastructure investment. Further information about Seedling is available at www.seedlingenterprises.com.