AccuVein gets capital shot in the arm

While it's become common to hear of companies trimming their staff, a Cold Spring Harbor medical-device company is bucking that trend with plans to boost its employment next year.

AccuVein Inc. has more than 50 employees, up from just 15 two years ago, said Ron Goldman, founder and chief executive. Goldman plans to add employees in sales and product development here.

He didn't say how many employees but expects that a $22.5-million venture-capital investment the company has received will mean a lot more business and employment growth.

"With this funding we expect that we will have substantial growth going into next year," he said.

AccuVein was the only Long Island company to receive a venture-capital investment last quarter, according to the MoneyTree report recently released by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association. The primary investors were MVM Life Science Partners, with offices in London and Boston, and Bessemer Venture Partners, based in Larchmont in Westchester County.

So far this year there have been just two other venture-capital investments in Long Island companies, according to the report. KellBenx, a Massapequa biotech company, received $2.5 million in venture capital funding in the second quarter, and Mirimus Inc., which produces genetically engineered mice for research, won $2 million in the first quarter.

AccuVein manufactures and sells the AV300, a hand-held infrared device that illuminates blood vessels, making it easier to pinpoint veins for inserting an IV or for drawing blood, among other uses.

Goldman, an electrical and computer engineer, said he invented the device and with the help of some local technologists developed a commercial version. The company does research and development here but manufactures in Rochester, Minn.

AccuVein began selling the AV300 in 2009. It's now available in 91 countries. Earlier this year China approved the device for sale there. Exports account for more than 50 percent of the company's sales, said Goldman, a former executive of Symbol Technologies Inc., a local maker of bar-code scanners and hand-held computers that Motorola Inc. bought in 2007.

"I think these types of relatively small-scale innovative companies are our future," said Professor Serge Luryi, director of the Center for Advanced Sensor Technology at Stony Brook University.

Frank Otto, president of the Long Island Forum for Technology, said companies like AccuVein are key because growth in medical-device manufacturing "will be explosive."