And The Winner Is ? –

Who says start-ups can?t get funding in this difficult climate? It just takes a little ingenuity, such as beating out stiff competition and getting the votes from 48 judges. For Firefly Imaging Inc., the 10 weeks and 499 other competitors was worth the effort as it earned a $1 million equity investment in Futuredex Inc.?s Match-a-Million funding competition.

Hollywood, Calif.-based Firefly, which owns the patent on a unique large format projection system, beat out nine other finalists to win the inaugural contest, held Dec. 5 in San Francisco.

?Our goal with the Match-a-Million event was to increase the visibility for private companies with the investors. We believe that now is the best time to be investing and hope this event will become the catalyst for a new generation of investors,? said Damir Perge, chairman, chief executive officer and co-founder of Futuredex. ?Firefly is the perfect example of a private company that?s on the road to success and deserving of a cash infusion to expand their foothold in the marketplace.?

Firefly, a full-service projection media company, has a patented projection system that projects multi-dimensional, full-color images, with no loss of image quality. Its lightweight, mobile design, cooling system, scrolling image and auto-timer technology allows multiple images to be projected virtually anywhere. Customers include Walt Disney Company, the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team, Univision and Honda.

The funding event that began in September uses Futuredex?s patent-pending process that combines online due diligence through the Futuredex website matching system with offline due diligence conducted by industry experts.

?In this difficult environment, we were fortunate to go through a streamlined process with Futuredex which will now enable management to focus on what we do best and that?s building our business,? said David Kingsdale, chairman, chief executive officer and founder of Firefly Imaging.

A review team of 48 experts known as the Swarm Review Team selected finalists.

Futuredex?s next Match-a-Million contest is slated for spring 2002 in San Francisco.