News: Portfolio 2007

Battelle Ventures Leads $4.5-Million Oversubscribed Series B Round Of W.Va. Precision Forestry Company ImageTree Corp.

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Scott Nissenbaum, partner, PA Early Stage Partners, said: "Today, forest inventory is predominantly a manually intensive, time-consuming and costly process. Simply stated, it's basically on-the-ground quantification and qualification of a property, through what's known as 'field cruises.'

 

"But with ImageTree," Nissenbaum continued, "conservation, government and institutional investment organizations, such as TIMOs and REITs, can reduce by up to 80 percent an inventory cycle that typically takes five years to complete and cut forest-management costs by 30 percent or more."Explained ImageTree CEO Mark Redlus: "Typically, only one percent of a forest is actually sampled, then projections are made to estimate the composition and value of the whole forest. There is a struggle for consistency and accuracy, and it is common for illogical changes to show up in estimates made several years apart.

 

 

"This is the challenge the forest industry faces as the fast-growing, previously non-timber class of forestland owners demands better, more precise inventory data on which to make operational and investment decisions, including narrowing or eliminating the price-to-market gap driven by inaccurate inventories," he added. "ImageTree is the only company that can extract the type of forestland detail necessary for precision forestry."

 

Redlus said that the infusion of capital would support sales and marketing efforts, help scale operations to meet growing demand, and fund ongoing research and development.

 

He noted that the company is leveraging industry and academic relationships, including those with the University of Georgia's Warnell School of Forestry, Yale University's Global Institute for Sustainable Forestry and the Davis College of Agriculture, Forestry and Consumer Sciences at West Virginia University.

 

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