Thursday, February 19, 2009

SOMARK Innovations Sets Up Shop In San Diego

SOMARK Innovations, a firm which is developing chipless, RFID tattoo technology used for animal identification, is setting up shop in San Diego, the firm disclosed earlier this month. The company--which also landed a venture capital round from Finistere Ventures and T2 Venture Capital--said the new location will be based at the Center for Emerging Technologies. SOMARK is based in St. Louis, Missouri. Finestere is based in San Diego, and also has ties to Missouri through the management of the Missouri Venture Partners (MVP) Fund. T2 Venture Capital is the early stage venture capital firm which came out of Los Angeles-based Larta, and is managed by former Larta president Victor Hwang and Greg Horowitt, who was the former Interim Executive Director of San Diego's CONNECT, and is now heading up Global CONNECT. SOMARK's technology uses tattoo technology--similar to the needles used on human tattoos--to imprint radio frequency-readable identification numbers onto the skin of livestock, avoiding the need for ear-tags, injectable RFID chips, or other technology for livestock tracking.

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