Two Dane County tech firms qualify for investor tax credits

Madison, Wis. - Gov. Jim Doyle has announced that FluGen and Sonoplot, two small businesses in Dane County, have qualified for investor tax credits under Act 255, the state's angel investor and venture fund tax credit program.

The program, designed to spur more angel and venture capital deployment, offers Wisconsin income tax credits to angel investors and investors in seed-stage venture capital funds.

There are currently 75 businesses qualified by the Wisconsin Department of Commerce to receive the tax credits, including FluGen and Sonoplot.

FluGen, which was formed in June 2007 to develop and manufacture more effective and safer vaccines and treatments for both seasonal and pandemic influenza strains. Its technologies are based on work done in the University of Wisconsin-Madison laboratory of Dr. Yoshihiro Kawaoka, which are licensed by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.

The Middleton-based Sonoplot creates substrates - molecules upon which enzymes act - that bind biological molecules and dispense fluid in microscale amounts. The company, which was formed in 2003, is developing fluid dispensers and an optical-disc-based diagnostic system. Tax credits are available only for investments made in technology businesses qualified by the Department of Commerce. As Commerce qualifies businesses for investment, it lists them on the Commerce website.

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