Ascendx Spine Wins Presenting Company SpotLight Award at SEMDA 2013 Conference

ATLANTA, GA--(Marketwire - Mar 7, 2013) -  In Room 222 at the SEMDA 2013 Conference, the hours rolled by, broken up into 15-minute increments. One by one, medical device executives stood in front of the crowd and described their companies, knowing that somewhere in the sea of investors' faces someone might be interested in their product or service.

The 20 companies -- a record number -- selected to present at the annual Southeastern Medical Device Association (SEMDA) Conference may not know for weeks or months whether their presentation will result in funding. However, one company stood out from its peers.

Ascendx Spine™, Inc., a Winter Park, Florida company focused on the development and commercialization of innovative orthopedic devices for the spine and trauma markets, received the first "Presenting Company SpotLight Award" for their presentation.

Ascendx Spine was selected by a three-person judging team of seasoned entrepreneurs and investors with input from attendees, who were able to rank a company at the close of its pitch using their mobile phones and texting.

Chris Hooper of Wholeberg Ventures, the judges' chair explained, "We evaluated all 20 SEMDA presenting companies when selecting the Presenting Company SpotLight Award winner. We ultimately chose Ascendx Spine because of their superior ability to communicate their potential performance of the essential elements investors typically evaluate when deciding to fund a company: magic, market, money, management, and momentum."

"We are grateful to SEMDA for this prestigious award," said Julian Mackenzie, CEO of Ascendx. "Additionally, we look forward to presenting our story at AdvaMed 2013: The MedTech Conference, an international event of thousands of attendees, influential policymakers, strategic investors, CEOs, business development executives and media. This opportunity is ours as a direct result of winning the 'Presenting Company SpotLight Award' during the 2013 SEMDA Conference, and is another great reason for emerging companies to participate in the SEMDA organization."

John Feltman, Chairman of Brookhaven Capital, founded Ascendx Spine and watched its performance during the Conference. Feltman led Ascendx until he recruited CEO Julian Mackenzie three years ago. "Julian has done a great job, especially in managing the challenging FDA approval process," Feltman said.

The seventh annual SEMDA conference set a new record with more than 400 attendees, toppling the previous 2012 record by more than one hundred participants. SEMDA is a non-profit trade association that supports and promotes medical device and MDDS companies in the Southeast. www.semda.net.