Innovista lands 2nd tenant

USC president announces plan by Collexis to join research campus

By JAMES T. HAMMOND - jhammond@thestate.com

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Collexis Holdings Inc., a homegrown developer of information search systems, is the second tenant for Innovista, USC’s new research campus in downtown Columbia.

University of South Carolina president Andrew Sorensen announced the new tenant Wednesday in his state-of-the-university address.

“I am delighted that Collexis will become part of Innovista,” Sorensen said. “As we work to strengthen our economy, we must have the ability to attract companies that will provide high-paying jobs and have a vested interest in the Midlands.

COLLEXIS HOLDINGS INC.
Chief executive officer: William D. Kirkland, a USC graduate
Company profile: A global knowledge discovery company since 1999, based in Columbia, with two subsidiaries, Collexis Inc. in Columbia and Collexis, B.V. in Geldermalsen, The Netherlands
Company product: Collexis-patented technology builds conceptual profiles of text, called Fingerprints, from documents, Web sites, e-mails and other digitized content and matches them with a comprehensive list of predefined “fingerprinted” concepts to make research results more relevant and efficient. This matching of concepts eliminates the ambiguity and lack of priority associated with word searches. The results are often described as “finding needles in many haystacks.” Through this approach, Collexis can build unique applications to search, index and aggregate information as well as prioritize, trend and predict data based on sources in multiple industries without the limitations of language or dialect.
Collexis clients: the National Institutes of Health, Johns Hopkins University, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Wellcome Trust, Harvard University and the University of South Carolina.
Collexis shares are traded under the symbol CLXS on the OTC Bulletin Board. For more information, visit www.collexis.com.
University links: USC is partnering with Collexis to commercialize research ventures to create a hydrogen fuel research Internet portal. Hydrogen fuel is part of USC’s research focus on alternative energy. USC and Columbia hope to use that research to drive the creation of a hydrogen and fuel-cell industry.
The hydrogen Web portal will give USC researchers an edge in searching for relevant information. The dashboard, similar to a virtual library, will be the basis for seven other alternative-energy topics, such as wind and biomass, that will debut later under a co-branded USC/Collexis alternative-energy suite.

“Collexis aligns very nicely with our research in alternative energy and fuel cells, the health sciences and computing. It is exactly the type of company that we want to have here.”

University officials have said they expect to announce more tenants for the research campus by year’s end.

Collexis will be located on the third floor of the Horizon II Building, on the block bound by Assembly, Blossom, Main and Wheat streets. Horizon II is expected to be ready to occupy in November 2008.

Bill Kirkland, chief executive officer of Collexis Holdings, said his company has committed to at least 5,000 square of space in the building at Blossom and Assembly streets, to be built by North Carolina developer Craig Davis.

“We have enjoyed a very productive partnership with the university through our joint projects with the Office of Research and Health Sciences and the School of Library & Information Science,” Kirkland said.

Collexis expects to have at least 20 people staffing its worldwide corporate headquarters there, said Kirkland.

Average pay was not available.

Harris Pastides, USC vice president for research and health sciences, said Collexis “really is a global operation.”

“Even their German and Dutch research partners will be welcome here,” Pastides said.

John Parks, executive director of Innovista, said Collexis presents opportunities for collaboration with other companies.

“Collexis is the second tenant slated for Innovista and is representative of the fast-growing technology companies we are seeking to attract,” Parks said. “Its location in Horizon presents many opportunities for collaboration with other companies that we are in the process of recruiting.”

USC announced in March that Duck Creek Techonologies of Bolivar, Mo., a provider of software for insurance carriers, would become Innovista’s first tenant and occupy the fifth floor of the Horizon II Building. Duck Creek plans to have 200 employees earning salaries starting at $85,000, Sorensen said.

Horizon II is one of two Horizon Center buildings that will focus on research in alternative fuels and information technology.

Other buildings include the Public Health Research Center, which opened last year, and two buildings that will form Discovery Plaza, a center for biomedical researchers in cancer and the neural sciences. One Discovery building will include the Center for Brain Imaging and research programs for the South Carolina Cancer Center.

These projects make up Phase One of Innovista, a $250-million investment by the private and the public sector and have 580,000 square feet of space.

Reach Hammond at (803) 771-8474.

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