Slowly but surely, more companies are taking up residency and interest in the business development programs offered at the Stamford Innovation Center.
The Innovation Center, which helps entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses by situating them in co-working space with their peers and connecting them with mentors and industry experts, has recruited four startups as tenants since officially opening in November.
“Growth is just happening all the time and at different levels of our business,” said Barry Schwimmer, founder and managing partner of the center, which together with the Business Council of Fairfield County is one of four hubs of the statewide Connecticut Innovation Ecosystem.
Roughly 2,000 people have already gone to events, classes and workshops held by the center. Attendance at the center”™s events has continued to rise, and now four of the six spaces available for year-long leases have been nabbed, Schwimmer said.
Additionally, Pankl Aerospace Innovations and EvoLux Transportation are housed in the center as winners of the first and second Entrepreneurial Challenge competitions hosted by Sikorsky Innovations, a subsidiary of Stratford-based Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. The winners were granted a year of rent-free space and mentoring in the center.
“As the entrepreneur in this, you want infrastructure, you want to develop faster,” Schwimmer said. “But if you look back at what you”™re building, it”™s very encouraging. There are always things you could do better, faster, but we”™re seeing the development of a really interesting entrepreneurship community here in Stamford.”
Personally Cool Inc., the Innovation Center”™s first tenant, makes on-the-go personal cooling kits designed to combat hot flashes. Local Yokel Media, the second tenant, offers a hyperlocal advertising platform for websites. Cashpath, a consumer money-management service, leased space in January. And newest to the center is Orthozon, a medical device company developing a minimally invasive surgical instrument for physicians.
“Connecticut Innovations pointed us to the Stamford Innovation Center and we are delighted they did,” said Joshua Aferzon, founder of Orthozon, in a statement. “We are sourcing as much of our product in Connecticut as we can, drawing on the state”™s long history as a manufacturing powerhouse. ”¦ There is a wide variety of talented vendors and individuals in Connecticut and we are excited about tapping into this resource.”
Aferzon is also a 2011 graduate of the University of Connecticut.
The Innovation Center is launching a new educational program this spring called Innovation Ed. Rather than having entrepreneurs watch videos and take online courses on their own, the program will allow participants to actively engage in courses that teach them how to develop businesses, from creating an ad campaign to redesigning a website.
“We think that many entrepreneurs are willing to pay for those sorts of skills to get them through hard knocks and get a foundation under their feet,” said Peter Propp, vice president of marketing for the center.
“The idea is working,” Propp said of the Innovation Center. “It”™s not happening overnight but it”™s growing and that is really rewarding.”
