Two new venture firms receive InvestMaryland funding

Two new venture capital firms are receiving a portion each of the state’s $84 million InvestMaryland fund.

• EnerTech Capital Partners, which invests in early-stage and mid-size cleantech companies, will receive $10 million to invest in Maryland-based companies.
• Foundation Medical Partners, which invests in health IT companies, will receive $7 million to invest in Maryland-based companies.

“[T]he firms will return to the State’s general fund 100 percent of the principal and 80 percent of the proceeds from successful investments,” according to MDBizNews.
As Technical.ly Baltimore has reported, the $84 million InvestMaryland fund was signed into law in 2011 and raised in spring 2012 through the sale of insurance tax credits. Money from the fund is intended for early-stage startups, and is divvied up for investment among three groups:

• Venture capital firms receive 67 percent.
• The Maryland Venture Fund, the “state-funded and early-stage equity fund within” the state’s Department of Business and Economic Development, receives 24.75 percent, which is then invested into emerging companies in the state.
• And 8.25 percent goes toward the Equity Participation Investment Program, “designed to expand business ownership by socially or economically disadvantaged entrepreneurs.”