As a longtime telecommunications industry manager and university administrator, Gad Selig has learned plenty at the intersection of Corporate America and academia.
But just as a microwave oven left inside the box after its arrival at the new CT IncUBator in August shows, it is clear Selig still has a thing or two to learn about high-tech startups.
The University of Bridgeport”™s associate dean of business development and outreach will be getting a crash course on the topic this month ”“ and it is doubtless that Selig will share a slice or two of re-warmed pizza for breakfast along the way, as he helps out startup tenants.
Applications have begun trickling in for space in a new technology incubator on campus that the school and sponsor Connecticut Innovations Inc. hope will spur entrepreneurship in Bridgeport ”“ and perhaps draw students or professors from the school”™s fast-growing school of engineering as they attempt to commercialize their research projects.
A state-backed venture capital fund in Rocky Hill, Connecticut Innovations currently runs a business incubator at Yale University that last October drew Westport-based SecureRF Corp. to set up a lab developing security software for radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags. In addition to relatively cheap space and shared amenities like conference rooms and kitchens, such facilities offer entrepreneurs the ability to share notes and draw on the expertise of financial, legal and operations advisers affiliated with incubators.
Tech incubator was much needed
“The need for a technology-based incubator in Fairfield County was glaring, especially when you looked around at what the other states are doing,” said Charlie Moret, managing director of business development for Connecticut Innovations.
Even as workers readied the Bridgeport incubator this summer, Connecticut Innovations aired plans to establish a third incubator at the University of Connecticut Health Center Stem Cell Institute in Farmington, aiming to capitalize on $100 million the state is sinking into stem-cell research over 10 years, as well as other investments at the UConn Health Center.
For evidence in how industry-specific incubators can succeed, one need look no farther than the Rutgers University Food Innovation Center in Bridgeton, N.J., whose director Louis Cooperhouse testified last March in support of a bill that would furnish more federal support for incubators.
“I can speak firsthand and say that an incubator can truly become the catalyst for the creation of a business cluster,” Cooperhouse said. “As a case in point, our Rutgers Food Innovation Center has created a statewide food industry cluster. To date, the center has served over 1,000 food and agribusiness companies in every county of New Jersey.”
Cautionary tales exist as well, however ”“ even as Connecticut Innovations revealed the University of Bridgeport incubator in April, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute was shuttering what is thought to have been the first university-based incubator in the country at its campus in Troy, N.Y. At the time of its introduction in 1980, the RPI incubator was one of just a dozen or so facilities in the nation, according to the National Business Incubator Association. NBIA says that number has sprouted to some 1,100 incubators in the United States today; in 2005, business incubators housed or assisted 27,000 startups that employed 100,000 people and produced $17 billion in revenue that year, according to NBIA estimates.
Incubator planning for six tenants
If starting small, the University of Bridgeport incubator will be open to the widest possible array of technology companies. The center can accommodate up to six startups, with leases initially lasting a year and rents ranging between $500 and $700 monthly.
“We”™ll take anybody,” Selig said. “Probably the ideal mix is four product companies and two (technology) services companies.”
If activity really warms up at the incubator, Selig and Moret hope to see it hatch a steady stream of businesses that set up nest in the Bridgeport area to continue development. Selig points out data from NBIA that shows that 87 percent of incubator “graduates” are still in business after five years, with 84 percent of that number remaining in the communities where they were born.
Even as they nurse along their nascent facility, both men are looking ahead.
“Blue sky? We”™ve only got about 2,400 square feet of space in there,” Moret said. “I”™d love to see us get a location on campus with 10,000 square feet, enough for 20 to 25 companies.”
