Texas Emerging Technology Fund


The Texas Emerging Technology Fund is a technology investment fund created by legislation in 2005 at the urging of Governor Rick Perry to provide Texas with an unparalleled advantage in the research, development, and commercialization of emerging technologies. The enabling legislation launched the ETF with $200 million to help create jobs and develop the economy of Texas. Legislative revisions during the 2007 and 2009 sessions have expanded the total funds under management to approximately $500 million.
As of October 2010, the program has given a total of $173 million to 120 companies as well as $161 million to educational institutions.
Governor Greg Abbott signed a law ending the Texas Emerging Technology Fund on June 4, 2015.

Fund administration

Investment Focus

The ETF focuses on three main investment areas:
ETF's first investments were executed in May 2006. By October 1, 2009, the ETF was the single largest pre-seed investor for emerging technology companies in the entire United States. As of June 6, 2011, the ETF had invested $196M in 132 commercialization investments. Approximately 1/2 of ETF's commercialization investments have been made within the biotechnology and life sciences industry. 2014 has witnessed a slowdown in all three versions of ETF awards at the same time a special Texas House subcommittee explores incentives programs ahead of the 84th Texas regular legislative session.

Deal Sourcing

The ETF established seven Regional Centers of Innovation and Commercialization to foster technology commercialization throughout the entire state of Texas and act as an efficient deal sourcing mechanism. In addition, a statewide Life Science Regional Center of Innovation and Commercialization also was formed. The RCICs act as the regional agent to identify, evaluate, and submit promising proposals from their respective regions to the ETF Advisory Committee. The ETF Advisory Committee makes recommendations to Trustees who make final decisions on awards. RCICs work closely with applicants in assisting with ETF proposal development, post-proposal debriefings, and commercialization activities. In addition, RCICs are a strong focal point to increasing cooperation and spurring collaboration between industrial, financial, and academic entities.

Accolades

The ETF has been recognized nationally as the most active early-stage technology venture funds in the country. The fund estimates that portfolio companies and awardees have raised close to $1B in follow-on investment and private funding following ETF investment yet this is self reported information and has not been audited. Cardiospectra, Inc., an ETF portfolio company, was acquired by Volcano Corporation in December 2007 for $25M in cash with an additional $38M available upon the achievement of specific milestones. ETF's return on investment on the Cardiospectra deal was 216% as of January 2011. Several ETF companies have been acquired and there has been one Initial Public Offering since the fund's inception.
Christopher Banas of Palmaz Scientific, Cardiospectra and now Pryor Medical, and Paul Castella filed the following lawsuit, "BANAS v. VOLCANO CORP.CASE NO. 12-CV-01535-WHO"........"Banas and Castella initiated this action against Volcano seeking millions of dollars. It
would be patently unfair to hold that Volcano waived its contractual right to attorneys'
fees because it appropriately required Banas and Castella to plead the basis for their
standing to assert breach of contract.6 Cf Johnson v. Myers, 2014 WL 2214045, at *2
. If Banas and Castella have an
arrangement with other former CardioSpectra shareholders, or the dismissed defendants, regarding
indemnification for attorneys' fees, that is their business. However, there is no question that, as
plaintiffs, Banas and Castella are liable for attorneys' fees in the first instance...."

Banas and Castella then appeal.....and file an affidavit of inability to pay.
.......Yet they say nothing about any efforts they have made in recourse to those institutions, and
dozens of other individual and institutional former shareholders, to seek help in securing the
required bond pursuant to their indemnity rights as Shareholder Representatives..
The sincerity of Plaintiffs’ invocation of the State and University of Texas is specious on its face,
as neither institution was a party to any of the three complaints filed by Plaintiffs. Ezer Decl., Ex.
A ; Ex. B ; Ex. C...."

Fund Management

The ETF is housed within the Economic Development and Tourism division of the Texas State Government. Terry Chase Hazell currently serves as the TETF Director and is considered the most private equity experienced director to serve. Prior TETF Directors include Jonathan W. Taylor, Mark Ellison, Alan Kirchhoff and interim director Patrick Boswell. You can visit the TETF website at: http://www.emergingtechfund.com ETF has consistently maintained an extremely low analyst to project investment ratio.

Debates and commentary about funding

The internal rate of return of the ETF s very low and comparable to investing in U.S. treasuries. Therefore, questions have arisen about the ETF's required rate of return and performance against benchmark.
Under the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's Rule 501 Regulation D, TETF does not fall under any of the eight definitions of accredited investor, affecting TETF's participation in follow on offerings.
An October 2010 article by the Dallas Morning News editorial board argued for fundamental reform in how the fund works. The board stated, "The way Texas doles out money... raises such serious questions about the role of political donations in the fund's operation that the governor and the Texas Legislature should revamp it." Although the board considered it "a valuable program", it remarked that "other states have tried to keep politicians at arm's length from the selection and funding process... Texas needs to do the same".
In response to criticisms, Governor Perry has said that it "is a pretty rare occurrence" for him to know that political supporters have connections to firms that receive funding. One such rare occurrence was Convergen Life Sciences, now called Genprex. The CEO, David Nance, was a donor and his company received a $4.5 million ETF award.
Many involved in the ETF process firmly believe the implications and criticisms of the press, most notably the Dallas Morning News, to be "inaccurate and ignoring the hundreds of individuals around the state that freely devote their time, energy and efforts to the process to ensure that Texas is pushing the technological envelope that will lead to scientific breakthroughs and a stronger economy." Despite criticism by the press, a majority of the ETF's 140 investments since 2005 are still operating as of February 2013.
Many of the jobs created by the fund have been outside Texas and several of the companies have left the state. By government accounting standards the fund has lost $25 million so far. but a separate valuation of the fund for legislators produced a significant gain in fund value.
Texas government code 490.102 specifies a 50% allocation of legislative appropriations for ETF to Incentives for Commercialization Activities awards, though Trustees have discretion to vary the allocation of legislatively appropriated funds to Incentives for Commercialization Activities, Research Award Matching, Acquisition of Research Superiority awards each and every legislative biennium. Some critics cite large awards to Texas A&M University for Research Award Matching afforded by this statute.
Texas government code 490.153 institutes a 2% limit on funding for Regional Centers of Innovation and Commercialization. Upon review of 2013 ETF annual report to the Texas legislature, ETF has exceeded allowed amount for awards to Regional Centers of Innovation and Commercialization in excess of 4.5 million dollars as of August 31, 2013.
Example calculation: Texas legislature appropriated 50M USD for ETF during the fiscal year 2014 and 2015 biennium. Therefore, $500,000 is available to fund RCICs for the FY 14/15 biennium. However, ETF may have already exceeded this limit with awards for five or more RCICs. These awards have been announced in newspaper reports and by the RCICs, but have not been formally announced by ETF manager as recommended by state auditor.
Transparency concerns have dogged the fund since inception. Nevertheless, the state legislature has consistently funded the ETF, even as some legislators express concerns over the fund's true performance in the areas of job creation and return on Texas taxpayers' monies.
The Texas state auditor's report of 2011 was not complete, in that job creation and valuation methodology remain opaque up to the present day.