Boston, MA USA, 20 July 2009 — yet2.com has opened an early-stage venture program to invest in companies with strong intellectual property and commercializable technologies. The investors have special interest in “clean” or “green” technologies, materials and physical sciences, life sciences, and consumer products.

yet2.com is the world’s largest intellectual property exchange. Its client base consists of about half the Global 1000, along with hundreds of small-to-medium enterprises. About 120,000 individuals involved with Open Innovation visit its global marketplace web site annually in search of new technologies.

Ben duPont, president and yet2.com co-founder, said, “The unique information we obtain through our global marketplace about the demands of the most sophisticated, established companies, provides us a way to identify hundreds of promising investment opportunities. In some cases, we even help to create these opportunities. We began venture investing because we would frequently have a client receiving a lot of market demand, but who could not find ready access to capital even from key market players. So we stepped in with financing.”

“We almost never invest on our own,” explains duPont. “We bring other capital with us. When a company engages us to market their technology, we naturally expose it to our unique access to validation. We can be instrumental in validating that there is market interest in a technology, and in assembling the investors to take advantage of that interest.”

The typical yet2.com investment is in a small company with robust intellectual property or in a corporate spinout. yet2.com focuses on sectors where its global marketplace has strong deal flow. Currently, these areas include:

• Clean and green technologies: renewable energy, green materials, industrial biotech, and technologies that promote energy efficiency and air/water quality.
• Materials and physical sciences: advanced materials, process technologies, coatings and films, agriculture, and composites.
• Life science: medical devices, drug delivery, anti-microbials, diagnostics, and sensors.
• Consumer products: electronics, functional foods, health and wellness.

yet2.com actively seeks business plans based on technology rather than on financial or retail businesses.

Said duPont, “yet2.com has a very strong understanding of market needs and where there is market pull in technology. It’s exceptionally powerful to leverage this and to help our portfolio companies gain access to new partners and new markets. We’ve spent ten years doing deals and building relationships with the Fortune 500, we have offices on three continents, so we are better able to help our portfolio companies grow.”

Here is a sampling of the companies in which yet2.com currently has an equity stake:

• www.axelabiosensors.com — Technology to rapidly understand protein interactions and develop quantitative assays
• www.suretogrow.com — Technologically advanced and environmentally friendly Greenhouse and Hydroponics grow media
• www.ganedenbiotech.com — Effective probiotics for digestive aid and topical applications, and environmentally friendly animal feed
• www.electropetroleum.com — Environmentally friendly breakthrough technology for heavy oil recovery using electricity
• www.nanopackinc.com — Environmentally friendly barrier film coatings for the packaging industry