OEN News2024 Angel Oregon Life & Bioscience Investment Announced
Oregon Entrepreneurs Network (OEN) and its partners announced the angel investee at the Angel Oregon Life & Bioscience (AOBIO) Investment Announcement Mixer held November 21st in Portland.
Axia Orthopedics, a local medical device company focused on addressing the biggest problem in orthopedic fracture fixation surgery, earned the $185,000 angel investment from the program. Co-founder and CEO Andy Seykora presented the company alongside finalists Chase Kahmann from ESG Brands, Rachel Dreilinger from NeuraMedica, Reva Barewal from Savorese Therapeutic Foods and Craig Stolarczyk from SynPlexity.
“We learned a great deal leading up to the investment through the educational content coordinated with local biotech companies, and leveraged that learning as we have worked to close our funding round. This has been a fabulous experience and community. We are thrilled with the support and shared enthusiasm to improve the hardest, and most critical, step in fracture surgery and support Oregon biotech along the way,” said Axia Orthopedics’s CEO Andy Seykora after the announcement.
The third annual AOBIO hosted by OEN was presented in partnership with Oregon Bioscience Incubator (OBI), Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), Oregon Bioscience Association (OregonBio) and Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute. The annual program included two cohorts of entrepreneur education focused on preparing for an investment in addition to the angel fund competition and is one in a series of Angel Oregon events.
The AOBIO angel fund is made up of investments from local angel investors as well as local institutional investors. Investors in the fund conducted due diligence on the applicants and selected a winner in a private vote, the results of which were revealed at the mixer held at McMenamins Mission Theater. Attendees included investors and venture capital firms, universities, government agencies, service providers, and nonprofits, representing a cross-section of the Oregon and Southwest Washington bioscience sector.
“This year, we saw a record number of life and bioscience companies participate in AOBIO,” said Cara Turano, President and Executive Director of OEN. “The due diligence process to arrive at today’s investment was the most competitive I’ve seen in an OEN Angel Oregon program. Each finalist is poised for success and highlights the strength of this innovative and life changing industry here in Oregon. Congratulations to the Axia team, each of the finalists, and to all the companies who are growing their disruptive businesses here.”
Oregon Entrepreneurs Network (OEN) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to helping entrepreneurs start up and scale up. The organization hosts a mix of sector-specific Angel Oregon entrepreneur education and angel investment programs each year, including Angel Oregon Life & Bioscience (AOBIO), Oregon Tech (AOTech) and Oregon Angel Food (OregonAF), as well as the annual OEN Entrepreneurship Awards. Learn more at www.oen.org.
