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Homeland Security - Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Pair of Anti-Terror Startups Funded In Single Day

If 24s Jack Bauer was a VC, he would be on the board of Passport Systems and Biovigilant. Passport Systems raised $2M in a second round today. The management team and board has more MIT PhDs than you can shake a stick at.

The company's origins came in 1988 after the Pan Am 103 Lockerbie aircraft terrorist explosion. Passport's founder, William Bertozzi, professor of physics at MIT, set out to apply nuclear physics techniques to the detection of terrorist threats. Passport was founded in December 2002 to commercializing technology for the non-intrusive inspection of cargo containers.

Across the country in Tucson, BioVigilant Systems raised $4M, also in a 2nd round. This startup makes devices that detect the presence of microbes and bioterrorism agents in air and water. Biovigalant was founded in 2002 and its first product is an air sampling device for bio-terror that is roughly the size of a small toaster oven and costing tens of thousands of dollars.

Instantaneous Microbial Detection Device - Has Circa 1960s Appearance