Venture Firms Like What They See in Mann’s Latest Company

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Venture Firms Like What They See in Mann’s Latest Company

WALL STREET WEST

Second Sight, one of entrepreneur Alfred Mann’s latest ventures, has just closed its first round of fundraising after delivering promising clinical results that could lead to its first commercial product.

The company, based in Sylmar, raised an undisclosed amount from a group of investors that included Versant Ventures, Las Vegas entrepreneur Steve Wynn and a private health care partnership.

Second Sight is developing an artificial retina that can give limited vision to people who are blind as a result of diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa, an inherited condition that has damaged the sight of Wynn, developer of the Bellagio Hotel & Casino. The artificial retina uses an array of 60 implanted electrodes.

Mann, who founded the company in 1998 with two other investors, said the company was gearing up to launch the first product late next year.

The company had not expected to proceed this quickly but initial results on three patients implanted with a first-generation, 16-electrode array have gone better than expected.

This is the first time Mann, who sold MiniMed Inc. to Medtronic Inc. for $3.1 billion, has sought venture funding. Versant is a health care venture fund based in Menlo Park and Newport Beach. It made the Second Sight investment out of a $400 million fund it started last year. It also has invested locally in AcuFocus Inc., a Westlake Village company developing an implantable reading lens for laser eye surgery patients.

“We like the ophthalmic vision correction sector, and Second Sight has made great progress in developing their technology,” said Versant managing director William Link.

Laurence Darmiento

Chasing Better Yields?

It may be the year of the dividend, but don’t expect many L.A.-based companies to crash the party.

Dividends paid by companies in the S & P; 500 Index rose 19.3 percent, on average, so far this year, with a median increase of 10 percent. But fewer than 20 Los Angeles-based companies are part of the S & P; and only 10 pay dividends.

So far this year, Avery Dennison Corp. and Occidental Petroleum Corp. have paid the highest dividends to their shareholders, both with yields of 2.8 percent.

Other decent performances were turned in by Unocal Corp., with a 2.5 percent dividend yield, and Northrop Grumman Corp., at 1.8 percent.

Avery was the long-term winner with a five-year dividend yield of 12.67 percent.

Generally, rising dividend payouts are good news for long-term investors, particularly those who dabble in index funds that track the S & P; 500 and retirees who rely on dividends for income.

Kate Berry

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