Rice University Business Plan Competition winner announces relocation to Houston

Medical Adhesive Revolution is first international winner and first winner to move to Houston

The 2014 winner of the Rice University Business Plan Competition (RBPC) — Medical Adhesive Revolution (MAR) of RWTH Aachen University, Germany – announced this week that it will relocate its headquarters to Houston. MAR executives made the announcement Oct. 16 as they rang the Nasdaq stock market closing bell in New York City’s Times Square.

Pictured, from left, are Ashok Rao, GOOSE Society of Texas; Marius Rosenberg, CEO of Medical Adhesive Revolution; Brad Burke, managing director of the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship; Nate Olsen, Insperity; and Chad Carson, Greater Houston Partnership.

MAR is developing a high-strength biodegradable surgical adhesive that can be used inside the human body to seal wounds within seconds. The adhesive could save lives, reduce time in surgery, cut hospital costs and lead to quicker patient recoveries, according to MAR officials. The company won $507,500 of the nearly $3 million in cash and prizes awarded at the world’s richest and largest student startup competition in April. MAR was the first international winner in the contest’s 14-year history and now is the first winner to move to Houston.

MAR CEO Marius Rosenberg and MAR USA President Alexander Schueller were joined at the bell-ringing ceremony by Brad Burke, managing director of the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship, which hosts the annual business competition; Ashok Rao, of the competition’s lead investors, the Houston-based GOOSE Society of Texas; members of the OWL Investment Group; Chad Carson of the Greater Houston Partnership; and Nate Olsen and Kimberly Rawson of Insperity, the competition’s title sponsor.

“Winning the Rice Business Plan Competition created so many wonderful unintended consequences for us,” Rosenberg said. “Most importantly, we met numerous investors, life-science experts and supporters while at the competition. As a result of this interest, mentoring and investment from the GOOSE Society members and others, we have broadened our horizons and are now looking at the worldwide market for surgical adhesives, including getting Food and Drug Administration approval for widespread use in the United States. We will be moving the business to Houston in an effort to pursue these goals.”

The GOOSE Society of Texas and OWL Investment Group, founded in 2010 by Silicon Valley venture capitalist Robert Winter, are pledging a $2.5 million investment in MAR; Rao will become chairman of the board for MAR USA. The move to Houston was supported by the Opportunity Houston program of the Greater Houston Partnership, which provided a $100,000 investment incentive to relocate to Houston. Also supporting the move is the Houston Technology Center (HTC), which is providing client support and office space as part of the HTC’s accelerator and incubator programs.

More than 155 companies have successfully launched their ventures and raised more than $800 million in funding and have a valuation of more than $1.5 billion after competing at the RBPC, Burke said.

“It has been the goal of the competition to attract the best companies to let Houston investors see them and get the best chance at them,” Burke said. “I think this will increase the competition and encourage more and more companies to apply. We’ve been working so long to raise the profile of Houston. We’re starting to make progress.”

This is the seventh year that Nasdaq has sponsored the Rice Business Plan Competition and MAR is the sixth team to ring the bell at the Nasdaq MarketSite.