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ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT - November 2005
At the least, launching a startup or a new product takes three things: time, money and brains. But most often it takes something extra: a little help. ICCs aim to create and fund high-growth, knowledge-based businesses within Kentucky. Since their inception beginning in 2001, 89 new companies and 842 jobs have been created statewide, with an average salary of $56,802, KSTC documents show. Matt McGarvey, vice president of commercialization and venture finance with the KSTC, said the ICCs were developed in part by examining similar models in eight other states that were performing, like Kentucky, under the national average on all key economic indicators. That information was used to build a program to develop business plans, educate fledgling entrepreneurs, and help them secure grants and attract investors. “This is just part of that strategy to jump ahead of the pack,” McGarvey said. Elizabethtown’s Example On the higher-tech end, one of the Elizabethtown center’s newest companies is the Amber National Network Alliance (www.annasaves.com), which opened June 15 in Elizabethtown with a Web-based service enhancing the Amber Alert child abduction notification system. The company digitally stores information parents can enter and update in advance with their children’s personal information and photographs. This data can be immediately distributed to law enforcement in the event of a child abduction, saving critical minutes that can be used in the search instead of gathering the information from a panicked parent. CEO Lyle Hawkins, a Louisville resident, said he’s been busy soliciting Kentucky schools and parents to participate in the service, with his sights on nationwide exposure. Hawkins said the time between his first contact with Elizabethtown’s center and launching the company was about 18 months. “It’s about saving time and saving lives,” Hawkins said. The Elizabethtown center has had 90 intake clients so far, and of those about a third are currently active in some stage of the invention development process. The local office has raised more than $3 million in venture capital toward two Elizabethtown projects, and has an active venture club, the Lincoln Trail Venture Group, with more than 50 investor members who help fund promising inventions. Grants of up to $100,000 are also available for those whose ideas show real potential, said Lisa Williams, director of Elizabethtown’s innovation center. Williams said anyone with inspiration and the willingness to follow it through the proper channels can see their ideas become reality. “If you’re passionate about it, you can make it happen,” she said. The Elizabethtown innovation center is one of several in the state. Major centers are in Louisville, Lexington, Covington, Murray, Bowling Green and Richmond; satellite centers are in Paducah, Elizabethtown, Williamstown, Pikeville, Ashland and West Liberty. As with its counterparts across the Commonwealth, the Elizabethtown center’s ultimate goal is to help home-grow new businesses and industries and provide jobs for communities without solely relying on state and local governments’ efforts to woo out-of-state companies with hefty incentive packages. McGarvey said over the past four years the ICCs have helped 75 client companies raise more than $78 million in investments during development. Other companies that have sought help to start or grow their businesses through the ICC network include:
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Enter Kentucky’s Innovation and Commercialization Centers. An initiative of the state Department of Commercialization and Innovation in the Economic Development Cabinet and the Lexington-based Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation, the centers are non-profit business accelerators scattered across the state.