What are some of the pros and cons of taking equity financing?
Their answers provide some good advice for prospective E-Teams. The interviewees are both in the medical device field. Ashish Mitra was part of the Novel Aortic Endograft E-Team from Stanford, developers of a stent graft with an adhesive delivery platform. They went on to form Endoluminal Sciences and received $2 million in venture funding. Evan Edwards, recipient of an E-Team grant in 2000, has been working toward commercializing his invention—a credit-card-sized epinephrine injector for people with severe allergies, dubbed the “EpiCard”—for the past eight years. His company, Intelliject, has received $13 million in venture funding and EpiCard is in late stages of development. Here are some highlights from the discussion. How did you position yourselves for venture capital funding? Edwards: The first step in moving toward VC funding is interacting with people. Talk with local businesses, join a venture group, join an on-campus entrepreneurship club. By going to their meetings and atte
