ALBUQUERQUE —The third time was a charm for Benjamin Warner.

In previous years, Caldera Pharmaceuticals Inc., has presented its business case twice at the Technology Ventures Equity Capital Symposium held each spring in Albuquerque. In both years, company officials described positive results.

But this year, Warner, CEO of the drug-screening and discovery-services company in Los Alamos, learned going in that he was about to close on a new investment package with the backing of a group that included Joe Abrams, co-founder of the Myspace parent company, Software Toolworks.

"That was in the works already, and it just happened that it came to a head," he said, noting the buzz had a positive influence on investors at the investor's forum this week.

About 220 people, including 60 investors, gathered at Embassy Suites recently to be wined, dined and better acquainted with advanced technologies from seven Department of Energy science laboratories around the country. On Thursday, participants heard presentations about new technologies from 18 aspiring private companies.

Joel Barker, author and futurist who popularized the concept of paradigm shifts, gave the keynote speech with advice for finding new ideas by "innovation at the verge" — or fusing diverse concepts in the particularly fertile area where differences meet.

Caldera Pharmaceuticals Chief Operating Officer Lori Peterson gave the company's 10-minute investors' pitch for its XRpro equipment. She said the technology produces better and safer drugs for less and has the potential to save billions by replacing an ineffective process for measuring new drug candidates. The result was a significant company move that added instrument sales to its role as a services provider.

"We were happy doing our own medicines," Warner said. "There was just enough customer demand for our equipment that we said, 'OK, if we don't start selling them, somebody else will.' So we said, 'Let's get them out there.' "

Most new business opportunities are aimed at solving a problem. Judging by this year's speakers, current problems are related to the energy crisis and the high cost of health care.

Two entrepreneurs from Santa Fe sought support for other kinds of health care cost solutions. Chantal Lau, CEO of Feeding for Health, LLC, pitched PreemiUm, an infant oral-feeding system designed to save costs for the 500,000 premature babies born each year in the U.S. David Joseph, CEO of Avisa Pharmaceutical, Inc., offered a product for rapid monitoring of lung pathogens responsible for diseases like cystic fibrosis and ventilator-associated pneumonia.

From Los Alamos, CEO Robert Hockaday of Energy Related Devices was making his third presentation to the forum, seeking a $1.85 million infusion to certify his company's BlackTip mounting system for photovoltaic panels on solar farms.

The system uses a biological heat-transfer efficiency modeled on the skin of a blacktip shark to reduce heat-related inefficiencies. The company hopes to use a 100-kilowatt demonstration plot located nearing Tucumcari so the technology quickly can be adapted to a utility-scale solar development.

Steven Yarbro, a former plutonium facility manager at Los Alamos, is using his background in high-hazard operations to go after heavy oil and tar sands that will still be there after conventional fuel supplies have been depleted. His company, SNT ventures, is seeking $1.5 million for validation and design of a Super Critical Water Extraction and Refining technology that will process the heavy oil on site, enabling delivery of a higher-value product using the existing transport infrastructure.

"For a long time, we thought we had an energy industry, and we thought we had an aviation industry, but now we've got oil and gas companies showing up on our stage and biotech companies," said John Freisinger, the new CEO and president of Technical Ventures Corporation. "It's a sign of a healthy entrepreneurial ecosystem."

Freisinger said at this year's event he saw more venture capitalists, a more diverse group and more attendees from out of state. John Elling, a serial entrepreneur with Phase I Ventures in Santa Fe, said he thought there were more ideas at an earlier stage at this year's forum.

"Usually, you see companies that have already done the first round of friends and family and are now looking for some money to take some thing they've established and grow," he said. "Now with SNT and some others, these are real early stage but still very polished presentations and very well qualified companies, successfully mentored by TVC."

Each year, TVC provides business planning seminars and turns a collection of business hopefuls into a competitive field of contenders with the help of financial, marketing and business development advisors.

Since 1993, when Lockheed took over the contract for Sandia, it has underwritten Technical Ventures as an economic development service to the community. During that time, TVC accepts some credit for helping 114 companies, representing 13,500 jobs and $1.2 billion in investments.

Contact Roger Snodgrass at roger.sno@gmail.com.