Innovation lands Luminetx on magazine's list:
Memphis firm placed on Red Herring's 'Top 100 in North America'
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Section: Business
Page: C1
Illustration: Photo
Source: Jane Roberts
Edition: Final
Jim Phillips by now is getting used to the accolades for his VeinViewer, Memphis-born technology that illumines the veins in the arm - or anywhere - and vastly improves the chance that the first stick will draw blood.
Tuesday, his company Luminetx not only made Red Herring magazine's "Top 100 in North America" list - editors' pick of the edgiest, high-tech companies most likely to succeed - but also is one of three winners profiled in the issue, on newsstands Monday.
"We've been accused of being too cautious in picking companies," said Joel Dreyfuss, editor-in-chief.
"This year, we decided to take some risks," he said, favoring "revolutionary over evolutionary."
The magazine received 800 nominations from its journalists and readers. It pared the list to 200. The final 100 were announced Tuesday in Monterey, Calif.
"What's most amazing to me is that we made the short list in the first year of being in business," Phillips said.
"It's big for us. We hit the list, and the major New York investment banks started to call. They've already been down to see us."
Luminetx began shipping its first orders last week. By the end of June, it will ship 160 of the imaging machines that use infrared technology to light up veins. Each costs about $25,000.
Order No. 1 was sent to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, the gift of Stanford Private Wealth Management, the next title sponsor of the FedEx St. Jude Classic golf tournament starting in 2007.
More than half of the winners are from California.
"Where the money is for funding tends to dictate where the companies are," Dreyfuss said.
According to Red Herring, California in 2005 "piled up nearly $10 billion in venture funds, four times what second-place Massachusetts put together."
Three of the winners were from the Southeast.
Luminetx and other innovators are changing how investors see Memphis, said Steve Bares, president and chief executive of the Memphis BioWorks Foundation.
The attention "creates opportunity for jobs and investment back into the community," he said.
"Additional opportunity emerges out of the companies themselves. Look at Richards Company, which spawned Wright Medical and Medtronic," he said.
"There's a lot more going on in Memphis than what people traditionally think. That's good for the investment community, good for the economic community, good for everybody."
Luminetx employs 45 people. This year, it will seek its third round of investors. The first two rounds produced $15 million.
-Jane Roberts: 529-2512
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