Skyview Ventures Makes Significant Investment in Silk Technologies, Ltd.

Nov 08, 2017

Skyview Ventures is excited to announce its Series A investment in Silk Technologies, a highly innovative biotech company with patented technology that uses silk protein to develop biological drugs designed to treat eye disease.

LOS ANGELES (PRWEB) NOVEMBER 08, 2017


Skyview Ventures, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of global private equity firm Skyview Capital, LLC is pleased to announce its Series A investment in Silk Technologies, Ltd (“SILKTECH”). This highly innovative biotech company has patented technology that uses silk protein to develop biological drugs designed to treat eye disease. Their lead drug candidate, SDP-4, has a dual mode of action. Pre-clinical findings have demonstrated that SDP-4 has potent anti-inflammatory activity that target known causes of Dry Eye Disease. In addition, SDP-4 significantly improves the wetting properties of ophthalmic formulations, which is essential for enhancing comfort during use. More notably, this inherent, enhanced wetting property of SDP-4 is achieved without increased viscosity, which can blur vision.


Skyview Ventures has committed $11.2 Million to support development of SDP-4 through Phase-2 proof of concept studies.


Dry Eye Disease is a multi-billion dollar market estimated to effect hundreds of millions of people worldwide, with at least 30+ million of those people in the United States. Dry eye is a disease of the tears and ocular surface that results in discomfort, visual disturbance, and tear film instability and which often limits vision. Inflammation is known to be a major causal contributor. Typical discomfort symptoms associated with dry eye include burning, stinging, grittiness, foreign body sensation, tearing, ocular fatigue, pain and of course, dryness. Although several current Dry Eye therapies exist, the market continues to demand a more robust and effective form of treatment. The SDP-4 drug is uniquely designed to address both the underlying inflammation as a result of the disease while providing the patient greater relief from their symptoms than currently available treatment options provide.


Alex Soltani, Skyview Ventures’ Chairman & CEO, stated, “Skyview Ventures has had great success partnering with exceptional entrepreneurs and helping disruptive, market-changing, companies achieve their maximum potential, and we believe this recipe for success will again be replicated through our investment and partnership with SILKTECH. SILKTECH and its highly savvy team has developed a novel product to solve a significantly growing problem which still has yet to find an appropriate and consistently effective solution. We are confident that the SILKTECH therapeutic which combines novel wetting attributes with potent targeted anti-inflammatory properties will provide a significant improvement to existing prescription Dry Eye therapies in the market today. Dry Eye impacts tens of millions of patients in the United States alone, and as a result the opportunity for disruption of this market is truly substantial. I, for one, suffer from this condition and I am looking forward to seeing this product quickly advance and become available for the benefit of the general population.”


Brian Lawrence, Ph.D., SILKTECH’s co-founder and CEO, says, “We are thrilled to have Skyview Ventures as our Series A investment partner. They are an optimal partner for SILKTECH given their enthusiasm for the Dry Eye space and their strong track record of success for investing in markets that require innovative approaches. In addition to capital, Skyview Ventures will provide SILKTECH with enhanced operational bandwidth that will be critical in accelerating our technology to the marketplace.” Dr. Lawrence has a Ph.D. from the Biomedical Engineering Department at Cornell University (Ithaca, NY), and has been devoted to developing the use of silk protein to treat eye disease for the past 12 years. SILKTECH team members will be speaking at the Ophthalmology Innovation Summit preceding the American Academy of Ophthalmology annual meeting on November 9th in New Orleans, LA.


Richard Lindstrom, M.D., a leading Ophthalmology expert who is on the SILKTECH Medical Advisory Board and a practicing Ophthalmologist and founder of Minnesota Eye Consultants, states, “SDP-4 offers a very novel approach to treating Dry Eye symptoms. It provides several modes of action to address this serious problem.”


Brian Levy, O.D., M.Sc, Chairman of SILKTECH, and a leading Ophthalmology industry expert who served as Chief Medical Officer for Bausch + Lomb and Aerie Pharmaceuticals says, “We are excited to have the Skyview Capital team join us at SILKTECH. The need for more effective Dry Eye therapies continues and the SDP-4 biologic offers a compelling solution.”


Emmett T. Cunningham, Jr, MD, PhD, MPH, an internationally recognized ocular inflammatory disease expert and leading venture investor in the sector will join the SILKTECH board of directors and states, “SILKTECH’s SDP-4 represents an exciting and potentially disruptive treatment approach to several, common ocular surface disorders, including dry eye.”


Paul Karpecki, OD, a leading expert in the field of dry eye disease, who is on the SILKTECH Board of Directors commented that, “The field of protein-based treatments for dry eye is significant and could represent one of the key mechanisms to managing this vast disease. SDP-4 is a prime example of how this silk protein may affect lubrication, inflammation and ocular surface healing.”


Matt Thompson, Skyview Ventures Senior Vice President says, “Dry Eye syndrome is a massive, under-diagnosed health issue. The current products on the market have significant adverse side effects and provide limited relief. This research was built on solid underlying science and has been funded to date by Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards from both the National Science Foundation and the Department of Defense. Our investment will help accelerate their growth, resulting in new products for consumers entering the market in the next several years.”


The Silk Technologies board of directors includes Dr. Brian Levy, Alex Soltani, Dr. Brian Lawrence, Bill Mower, Dr. Emmett Cunningham, Jr and Dr. Paul Karpecki.

About Skyview Ventures

Skyview Ventures is a wholly owned division of Skyview Capital, LLC. Skyview Ventures partners with talented entrepreneurs who are developing highly-disruptive technologies in a variety of different markets and industries. Skyview Ventures invests in early stage businesses, where the team can leverage industry experience and its vast relationships. Current areas of focus include Digital Media, IoT, Augmented and Virtual Reality, Telecom and Software, Social Media, Fintech, HealthTech and Biotech. Skyview Ventures is based in Los Angeles, California. http://www.skyviewcapital.com/ventures

About Skyview Capital, LLC

Skyview Capital is a global private investment firm headquartered in Los Angeles, California, which specializes in the acquisition and management of mission critical enterprises in the areas of technology, telecommunications, business services and manufacturing. By leveraging its operational resources and financial acumen, Skyview systematically enhances the long-term sustainable value of the businesses it acquires. To date, Skyview has successfully completed more than 25 transactions within its target market verticals. Visit http://www.skyviewcapital.com.

About Silk Technologies, Ltd.

Silk Technologies, Ltd is a biotech company focusing on innovating and developing silk-derived protein (SDP) products for ophthalmic applications. The Company’s patented SDP material is being developed for applications in treating dry eye disease, ocular inflammation, wound healing and tear film health. More information on the Plymouth, MN based Silk Technologies, Ltd. can be found at http://www.silk-tech.com.

Fidelis Cybersecurity appoints Cameron Pforr as President

22 Mar, 2022
BETHESDA, Md., March 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Effective immediately, Fidelis Cybersecurity, a portfolio company of Skyview Capital, has appointed Cameron Pforr as President, replacing CEO Anup Gosh to lead Fidelis during a period of unprecedented and transformational growth.  Cameron, having formerly served successfully as Fidelis CFO for the past two years, has extensive experience in scaling SaaS platform companies and cybersecurity organizations. He has led several tech luminaries such as Whiptail and its successful exit to Cisco and Permabit which was ultimately acquired by Red Hat. In addition to promoting Cameron, Fidelis also recently hired Eric Moseman as Chief Revenue Officer in January 2022. Eric has held senior executive sales and revenue growth roles at several SaaS companies such as Workday, Central Eyes, Attain and First Advantage. Cameron and Eric look forward to continuing their work at the company to exponentially scale Fidelis within the robust XDR space. Fidelis Cybersecurity is the industry innovator in Active eXtended Detection and Response (XDR) solutions trusted by Fortune 100 firms and government organizations worldwide. Most recently, Fidelis announced 34 new accounts and over $30 million in sales in its 2nd half fiscal year-end, fueled by Fidelis Elevate®, its Active XDR platform. The Fidelis footprint continues to show impressive growth across US Commercial, US Military Services, Federal Agencies, and Eastern Europe. In his newly appointed role, Cameron will report to the Fidelis board of directors. "I want to congratulate Cameron in his new role and am excited for the next phase of growth for Fidelis. Fidelis has been at the forefront of technology innovation and will continue to defend enterprises and our client networks vigorously. We are building a company to address the ever-evolving needs and challenging environment of our customers globally," said Alex Soltani, Chairman and CEO of Skyview Capital. "Cameron's impressive track record, depth of operational experience and excitement about accelerating meaningful growth of the business makes him an ideal leader for Fidelis. Finally, I would like to personally thank Anup for his contributions during his tenure as CEO of Fidelis." Cameron Pforr stated "I would like to thank Alex, the Fidelis board, our employees and most importantly our clients for having the faith in me to lead Fidelis through its next phase of growth. We are looking forward to Q1 being the strongest quarter in the company's history and continuing that momentum throughout the remainder of 2022 and beyond." About Fidelis Cybersecurity, Inc. Fidelis Cybersecurity, Inc. is widely recognized as the industry innovator in Active XDR and proactive cyber defense solutions, safeguards modern IT environments with unparalleled detection, deception, response, cloud security, and compliance capabilities. We offer full visibility across hybrid environments via deep, dynamic asset discovery, multi-faceted context, and risk assessment. These features help minimize attackable surface areas, automate exposure prevention, threat detection, and incident response, and provide the context, accuracy, speed, and portability security professionals need to find and neutralize adversaries earlier in the attack lifecycle. Fidelis is dedicated to helping clients become stronger and more secure. Fidelis is trusted by many top commercial, enterprise, and government agencies worldwide. For more information, please visit www.fidelissecurity.com . Fidelis Cybersecurity is a portfolio company of Skyview Capital . About Skyview Capital, LLC Skyview Capital is a global private investment firm headquartered in Los Angeles, California, which specializes in the acquisition and management of mission critical enterprises in the areas of technology, telecommunications, business services and manufacturing. For more information, please visit www.skyviewcapital.com . Media Contact: Skyview Capital LLC Jeff White Managing Director, Business Development jwhite@skyviewcapital.com 310-273-6000 SOURCE Fidelis Cybersecurity, Inc.

MeliBio’s honey production, minus the bee, will have you buzzing

17 Mar, 2022
MeliBio is turning the 9,000-year-old method of honey production on its head, taking out the bee and injecting precision fermentation and plant science. Darko Mandich, a former bee-honey industry executive, and Aaron Schaller, a scientist and amateur chef, started the San Francisco-based company in 2020 with the goal of bringing sustainability to the $10 billion global honey market, which Mandich described as “one of the most unsustainable agricultural sectors with broken supply chain and quality issues.” Mandich explained that his epiphany came while reading a Wired article that reported on how keeping honey bees in bee hives was actually killing the 20,000 wild and native bee species due to the loss of a diversity in the bee population. “We want to change the food industry in a way that we make food sustainable, nutritious and deliver it at no cost to our dearest animals, in our case, the bees,” he told TechCrunch. There are some companies already working in the bee space, like Beewise, which is doing automated beehives using precision robotics, and BeeHero , which is tracking the health of bees. BeeHero’s precision pollination platform wings its way to $19M in new funding Israeli company Bee-io is also working on a bee-free honey using patent-pending bio processes. However, Mandich touts MeliBio as being the first company to make real honey without bees. The product has been tested in four restaurants in New York with a successful outcome. MeliBio came up with two ways to make the honey without bees: the first is using plant science to understand how bees access the plants, and what they get from them in order to make the honey. Second, how to improve upon the molecular composition to scale and make the product. That is where precision fermentation comes in — by identifying the organisms that are good in this application so that it can be used widely, meaning in different ways from drizzling on food to baking with it. The company has now raised $5.7 million in seed funding to help it expand into foodservice and business-to-business applications. In fact, MeliBio is already collaborating with 30 companies that have signed letters of intent to do validation studies, Mandich said. Astanor Ventures led the round and was joined by Skyview Capital, XRC Labs, Collaborative Fund, Midnight Venture Partners, Alumni Ventures and Big Idea Ventures. MeliBio team, from left, Mattie Ellis, Aaron Schaller, Darko Mandich and Benjamin Mason. Image Credits: MeliBio “We are excited about MeliBio’s approach in building a next generation food technology that connects plant science and precision fermentation,” said Christina Ulardic, partner at Astanor Ventures, via email. “Darko and Aaron are passionate about taking pressure off the commercial honey bee supply chain and consequently improving pollinator diversity. We are quite impressed by their first product.” The new funding will be deployed into further R&D and scale-up of its microbial fermentation process and into the product’s official launch in April. Mandich also wants to increase the number of full-time employees from four to 10 by the end of the year, which is in addition to 14 contractors. Though the company is pre-revenue, he believes that will change once the product comes out and MeliBio can focus on fulfilling the letters of intent from multibillion-dollar food companies and restaurants eager to work with them. Next, Mandich plans to look into the $500 billion ingredients market and how to leverage the company’s precision fermentation technology to share the future of that market. “By using science as an alternative way, we reduce the pressure on wild and native bees,” he added. “There is a rising demand for honey, but by making it our way, we help bee biodiversity. American companies import honey from all regions of the world, and that process is getting more complicated and the quality is not always guaranteed, meaning it might not be real honey. By making it here, we simplify the supply chain, and with a domestic supplier, there are no late deliveries or quality issues. MeliBio will produce honey in three shifts, 365 days per year and make it a price parody with honey on the market.” 

NewNet plans to acquire Nokia Siemens Networks WiMAX business

15 Mar, 2022
NewNet Communication Technologies, LLC, a Skyview Capital, LLC portfolio company, announced today that the company plans to acquire the former Motorola Solutions’ WiMAX business from Nokia Siemens Networks. Under the terms of the agreement, NewNet would acquire the complete WiMAX product portfolio, the related employees and assets, as well as active customer and supplier contracts. Approximately 300 Nokia Siemens Networks employees would transfer to NewNet. The companies expect to close before December 31, 2011. “The addition of the WiMAX business would enhance the breadth of NewNet’s product portfolio, R&D capabilities, customer relationships and our overall market position in providing wireless infrastructure solutions to carriers on a global basis. We are thrilled at the prospect of welcoming a world-class group of WiMAX pioneers and thought leaders to the NewNet team,” said Ron Pyles, president and CEO of NewNet. “NewNet recognizes there is enormous potential in providing outstanding products, support and services to operators who have already invested heavily in WiMAX technologies as well as those who will do so in the future. We are committed to serving the market with an industry leading roadmap and innovative product migration options.” “We believe that our current WiMAX customers would receive the highest quality products, services and sales support from NewNet,” said Marc Rouanne, head of Network Systems, Nokia Siemens Networks. “This transaction would also provide an excellent opportunity for our WiMAX employees. We have great confidence in NewNet’s plans to become a major WiMAX infrastructure provider. The company has a solid track record in acquiring telecommunication businesses and driving revenue growth.” “This transaction represents a significant milestone in our strategy of building a strong global presence in the telecommunications marketplace through NewNet Communication Technologies”, said Alex Soltani, chairman and CEO of Skyview Capital. “We are very excited about the WiMAX market opportunity and are fully committed to supporting Ron and his team as they evolve the business into a global leadership position.” As a part of the transaction the companies expect to transition approximately 300 globally deployed Nokia Siemens Networks employees to NewNet. Many of these employees are based in suburban Chicago, USA and Hangzhou, China. Nokia Siemens Networks and NewNet believe this acquisition would provide transferring employees with attractive professional growth opportunities in a solid, technologically advanced company that has an on-going focus within their core areas of expertise.  Specific terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

News from the Association of Insolvency & Restructuring Advisors

01 Jan, 2022
Many corporations are seeking to enhance shareholder value by divesting struggling or non-core divisions. This process is called a “carve-out” (see the last edition of AIRA Journal (Vol. 25 No. 5.) for a previous article on this topic).

Top 20 stories of 2021 indicate market pushes beyond UV

By Carrie Meadows • 29 Dec, 2021
As we have done for many years, the LEDs Magazine team reviewed our website data to analyze trends across LED and solid-state lighting (SSL) business and applications, markets, new technology and research, and longer-form coverage from our magazine issues. The 2021 analytics revealed quite a mix of most-read content, with a greater variety of business stories pushing germicidal ultraviolet (GUV) research and case studies further down the top 20 list.

Working towards a more healthy and safe employee environment

01 Dec, 2021
Continuum Global Solutions is a provider of omnichannel contact center services. With more than 17,000 global employees Continuum has placed a high priority on their employee’s health and well-being. Continuum Air Care is a solution in which they monitor the indoor climate at their locations and ensure a safe workplace. They continuously measure CO2 levels in their office spaces with sensors displaying measurements on a mobile dashboard and wallboard in the relevant room.

Skyview Capital’s NewNet Secure Transactions announces Crypto Currency and Bitcoin Payment Transaction capabilities in Cloud

02 Nov, 2021
CHICAGO, Nov. 2, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — NewNet Secure Transactions (NST) is developing innovative payment systems which offer secure crypto currency routing, transfer, translation and conversion capabilities for crypto payment transaction providers.

Naeem Arastu Joins Executive Leadership Team At Skyview Capital, LLC

28 Oct, 2021
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 28, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Los Angeles based private investment firm Skyview Capital (www.skyviewcapital.com) announced today that Mr. Naeem Arastu has joined as a Managing Director of the M&A team. In his new role, Mr. Arastu will serve on the Investment Committee and work with Skyview's Founder & CEO, Alex Soltani to help lead the firm's global M&A initiatives and deepen the firm's partnerships with institutional investors.

After ‘Shark Tank’ Rebuff, Healthy Chocolate Milk Startup Slate Closes $5 Million Seed Round

By Douglas Yu • 04 Oct, 2021
Boston-based startup Slate, cofounded by friends Manny Lubin and Josh Belinsky to create a healthier version of the classic chocolate milk, hit a rough patch shortly after it started. When the founding duo presented their early prototype on Shark Tank back in 2019, the judges were unimpressed:

Skyview Capital Acquires OSRAM’s Digital Lumens and Encelium Lighting Solutions Business

24 Sep, 2021
LOS ANGELES, CA, September 24, 2021 /24-7PressRelease/ — Skyview Capital, a global private investment firm, announced that it has acquired the Digital Lumens and Encelium businesses from Osram Licht AG. Terms were not disclosed.
More Posts
Share by: