The Center for Innovative Technology announced today that its CIT GAP Funds closed an investment in Riogin, a Charlottesville-based company that has solved many issues related to peptide therapeutics.

Riogin developed a technology platform that overcomes many of the problems connected to peptide therapeutics, which represents a growing portion of the market opportunity for big biopharma. Current peptide drugs suffer from issues related to short half-lives, inconvenient frequency of dosing and administration, and undesirable side-effects. Riogin's novel double-binding approach solves many of these problems and has the potential to make existing and future peptide drugs better and safer.

CIT President and CEO Pete Jobse said, 'Riogin provides an elegant solution to many pressing issues in peptide therapeutics. Innovative solutions like these are what we look for when making CIT GAP Funds investments.'

Riogin CEO Dr. Mario Geysen said, 'We will use the investment from CIT GAP Funds to add an additional senior technical person to our team, which will increase our in-house assay capability and help scale our business more rapidly.'

CIT GAP Funds is a family of seed- and early-stage investment funds placing near-equity and equity investments in Virginia-based high-growth technology, life science and clean technology companies.

Tom Weithman, CIT Vice President and GAP Funds Managing Director, said, 'With an investment from CIT GAP Funds, Riogin is able to immediately expand translational research in an area of growing interest to biopharma, thus generating significant economic return within the Commonwealth of Virginia.'

Since its 2005 launch, CIT GAP Funds has invested in over 100 companies across the Commonwealth of Virginia, deploying more than $13 million of public funds and attracting over $200 million more in private funding.

About the Center for Innovative Technology, http://www.cit.org
Since 1985, CIT, a nonprofit corporation, has been Virginia's primary driver of innovation and entrepreneurship. CIT accelerates the next generation of technology and technology companies through commercialization, capital formation, market development and revenue generation services. To facilitate national innovation leadership and accelerate the rate of technology adoption, CIT creates partnerships between innovative technology start-up companies and advanced technology consumers. CIT's CAGE Code is 1UP71. To learn more, please visit http://www.cit.org. Follow CIT on Twitter @CITorg and add the Center for Innovative Technology on LinkedIn and Facebook.

About the CIT GAP Funds, http://www.citgapfunds.org
CIT GAP Funds makes seed-stage equity investments in Virginia-based technology, clean tech and life science companies with a high potential for achieving rapid growth and generating significant economic return for entrepreneurs, co-investors and the Commonwealth of Virginia. CIT GAP Funds investments are overseen by the CIT GAP Funds Investment Advisory Board (IAB). This independent, third-party panel consists of leading regional entrepreneurs, angel and strategic investors, and venture capital firms such as: New Enterprise Associates, Grotech Ventures, Valhalla Partners, Harbert Venture Partners HIG Ventures, Edison Ventures, In-Q-Tel, Intersouth Partners, SJF Ventures, Carilion Clinic, Johnson & Johnson, General Electric and Alpha Natural Resources.