RTP: Diverse and Growing

It’s that time of year again…RTP Directory time!  I know I know, that totally flopped, and a directory is only so exciting on the surface, BUT, the aggregation of the data tells a great story.  Check this out…

Number of Companies

• Holding steady at 170+

Employment Increase

• Between early 2011 and 2012, RTP added about 1400 full-time employees, with total employment now well over 39,000
• We’re getting a better handle on contract workers and estimate that including those, the Park’s population is closer to 43,000-44,000.  

Industry breakdown

• About half of RTP companies (45%) fall in the Biotech/Life Sciences category (which includes Ag-bio). These companies represent 23% of RTP employment. Many of our start-ups and early stage companies fall into the Life Sciences category as well.
• The second largest category is Information Technology, with 18% of companies representing 49% of RTP employment.
• RTP is home to 17 Scientific Associations and Institutes
• Other companies classify themselves as either Materials Sciences & Engineering, Clean & Green Technologies, Financial and Insurance Activities, Business and Professional Services, Other Service Providers.

 Size breakdown

• 43% of companies have fewer than 10 employees
• 88% of companies have fewer than 250 employees
• The median company size in RTP is 10.5 employees
• More than 75 companies in RTP are located in one of the 5 incubators/accelerators

 LEED development

• 8 buildings in RTP are LEED certified and 5 are LEED registered
• Several projects under construction will seek LEED

 Patents/Trademarks

• Through the end of 2011, RTP companies have been issued 3,549 patents and 1,854 trademarks

As you can see, the Park continues to grow and the companies that call RTP home continue to do amazing things!  If you’d like to read up on who’s who in RTP, visit our website and click on the RTP Directory promo button in the bottom right hand corner.

Start-Up Alley: Advance Your Start-Up

Guest blog post by Jeff Tippett, Calvert Creative

Are you an entrepreneur who wants to put your ideas in front of thousands? Start-ups of all types can enter to win the opportunity to claim a spot on the all-new Start-up Alley at the Greater Raleigh Chamber’s 2012 Business Expo.  Start-Up Alley is a contest for area start-ups driven through community voting and powered by social media. The winners will get to showcase their products or services to attendees in a special section of the show floor and connect with fellow start-ups and also get to pitch their business to angel investors and experienced entrepreneurs at a special panel event during the show for invaluable feedback.

Start-ups can register their companies on the Chamber’s registration page. They then promote their companies through social media, email marketing, word of mouth, etc. The nine companies with the most votes will win an opportunity to display their company on showroom of the Raleigh Convention Center at the Business Expo ’12. In addition, they will have the opportunity to pitch their company to an expert panel in an afternoon session. And following the expo they will be invited to a private networking event.

Why should a start-up participate?

Brand Awareness: Opportunity to tell THOUSANDS about your start-up at the largest B2B expo in our state. You get consumer feedback and potential customers.

Expert Advise: Pitch your company to angel investors, a business attorney, a product specialist, and a tech start-up CEO. You walk away with tons of expert advice to take your start-up to the next level.

Networking: Guaranteed invitation to a private networking event following the Business Expo.

Steps to move forward:

1. Register your start-up here on the Chamber’s UserVoice registration page.

2. Promote your company to everyone you know.

3. Promote more.

Need more information? Contact Jeff Tippett at jeff@calvertcreative.com or 919.459.8662.

Register now!

Startup Madness

It’s well known that we are “mad” about entrepreneurship and basketball in the Triangle, so Startup Madness, which took place on Wednesday at Bay 7 in American Tobacco, was the perfect combo for an event to showcase the entrepreneurial activity going on in the Triangle and around the southeast.

Tee Gee

Startup Madness was a bracket style competition where startups from universities throughout the US — such as UVA, University of Miami, UNC, Duke and NC State competed by giving two minute pitches.

The pitches ranged from “the smartest stuffed animal in the universe” named TeeGee , which is a stuffed animal powered by a parent’s iPhone or iPod Touch, to Mushroom Mountain, which (as far as I understood) uses mushrooms in a method similar to that of pesticides. In somewhat unrelated but yet similar line of business, the company also makes mushroom beer, which was a big hit with the Startup Madness crowd.

After the “Elite 8″ gave their pitches, two winners were announced – an overall winner and a North Carolina winner – who were each awarded $5,000 checks.

Mark Slaughter of Cohealo accepting his check

The overall winner was Cohealo, a company that helps to create system-wide collaboration within hospital systems, allowing for cost-sharing of capital assets.

NC IDEA also sponsored a North Carolina prize, which was awarded to a Duke-based startup, Neurospire, which uses neuroscience and brain imaging technology in market research.

The entrepreneurs celebrated and schmoozed after the competition at Fullsteam Brewery, a fitting end after a hard day’s work (or pretty much any day for that matter).

All in all it was a great event that showcased the ideas and innovations that are emerging out of some of the best universities in the US in a region that continues to be touted as one of the most innovative in the US.

Startup Madness: ACC Tourney for University Startups

Guest post by Scott Kelly 

March Madness is in the air!  While we love college basketball here in the Triangle, we also love startups!

On March 14th (the day before March Madness), 19 of the best student entrepreneurial teams from ACC schools will converge in American Tobacco in a bracket style competition. At the end of the day, one team will emerge as the best student entrepreneur in the ACC and take home the $5,000 prize.

Check out the Startup Madness video below & join the Madness by registering here.

CED on The State of the Entrepreneurial Economy of North Carolina

1,800 companies started.

40,560 jobs created.

$7.7 billion in capital invested.

This is the impact that entrepreneurs have had on the state of North Carolina in the past 20 years.

The “Starting Something: The State of the Entrepreneurial Economy of North Carolina, 1992-2011” report was presented last week at CED‘s Annual Meeting held at RTP Headquarters.  The data for the report was collected by, Maryann Feldman and Nichola Lowe, who are both professors at UNC-Chapel Hill, First Flight Venture Center, an RTP-based incubator, and CED.

Another important finding of the study is that the jobs created by these start-ups have stayed in North Carolina, which is key to the economic growth of the state.  Furthermore, while a majority of the VC funds that have invested in these start-ups are based in the Southeast, there have been investments made from international funds, as well as those based in Boston, NYC and California.

CED took on this initiative both to show the importance of entrepreneurs in our overall economy, but more importantly as a reminder of the various players and ingredients our region’s economy depends on to remain competitive.

At RTP, a central theme of our mission is to serve as an economic driver for the State of North Carolina and the Triangle Region.  It’s interesting to see the role the larger, more established companies in our region play — both as the sources of innovation and new companies and also as end-users or acquirers of some of the new ideas. We are proud to see these great innovators in the Triangle creating a thriving entrepreneurial community that is catching the attention of the nation.  This is what RTP is all about, folks.

For the presentation from CED’s annual meeting, click here.

For the press release, click here.

Southeast BIO Investor Forum

What do you get when you put a room full of biotech start-ups with cutting edge innovations together with the largest constituency of biotech investors in the Southeast?

The answer is the Southeast BIO Investor Forum, which touts itself as “the Southeast’s premier life sciences investor conference since 1999.”  With one of the largest and continually booming concentrations of biotech and life sciences companies in the US, it was only logical that the conference was held in the Research Triangle Region.  The forum, which took place on November 2 & 3 carried the theme of “Data Driven Deals” focusing on the importance of data in driving grants, corporate sponsorships, investors, and exits. 

SE BIO fills a very important gap, allowing life sciences start-ups to get in front of potential investors and pitch their technology.  Since the first forum took place in 1999, presenting companies at SE BIO have raised over $2.5 billion. With early stage biotech companies, the challenge is always the same – the founders have a great innovation but lack the funds to bring their idea to market – so they need money (and more often than not, lots of it).  The opportunity to get up in front of an audience full of investors and pitch their innovation is invaluable for these young companies.

In the Research Triangle Park specifically, we are proud to have nearly 80 biotechnology and life sciences companies, employing over 10,400 local specialists.  One of the main stage presenting companies was a company located in one of RTP’s incubator’s, CivaTech Oncology.  CivaTech develops polymer based radioactive devices to treat early stage prostate, breast and lung cancer.  CivaTech’s Director of Research & Development, Seth Hoedl, explained to potential investors the technology behind the company’s two products – the CivaSheet and the CivaString.  The technology that CivaTech has come up with satisfies unmet an medical need and will revolutionize the treatment of breast, prostate and lung cancer. 

At the closing luncheon for the forum, the North Carolina Treasurer, Janet Cowell, made an exciting announcement about the founding of the “Accelerator,” a $35 million fund to support early-stage life sciences companies. A great step forward for the state of North Carolina in helping start-ups gain access to capital and the perfect way to close the SE BIO Investor Forum.

High school students + Triangle CEOs = Startup High 2012

by Scott Kelly, RTP Guest Blogger from Startup High

Imagine a summer camp where CEOs and entrepreneurial leaders teach high schoolers how to build and grow companies.  What if each day the students had the chance to visit a different company and interact personally with business leaders?   

Startup High 2012 is making that happen.  

At some point during our life all of us will get out of the shower and say, “I know how I can make millions!”   If the idea gets off the ground it usually fails when it goes to market.  However, a recent methodology called Lean Startup (see Eric Ries’s book The Lean Startup) teaches a scientific approach to test ideas for market fit and can help increase the chance of success when launching a new venture.  

Lean Startup will be part of the curriculum Startup High and help students understand how to test those crazy startup ideas.  Also, instead of each business leader delivering a one way lecture to students, Startup High will utilize a question based approach.  Before each company visit, students will craft appropriate questions for leader to better understand how the company grew. 

Know a parent of a high schooler?  Send them to startuphigh.com, or the Nov 1 Lunch Info Session at First Flight, or one of the other info sessions.

First Flight Venture Center: Think. Grow. Connect.

Lately, there has been a ton of buzz in the Triangle about start-up companies…but where the heck do you go to actually “start-up”?

First Flight Venture Center (FFVC) is one of those places.  A business incubator in RTP (one of 5 incubators, accelerators and small space models in the Park), First Flight has been helping people think through their ideas, form companies and grow them into businesses for nearly two decades.  I like the blurb on their website – “…incubate just isn’t a word – it’s a commitment.  You think.  We think. We all think about how to make it successful.”  It’s about so much more than just space.  

For those of you that didn’t have a chance to catch the video of Andy Schwab from First Flight a few weeks ago, I’ve summarized the highlights below. If you’re already living in the Triangle and aren’t sure how to get your idea off the ground, call Andy!  If you’ve identified RTP as the place you want to launch your company, but aren’t sure where to call home, call Andy!  Read more »

How to Hatch a Goose Egg Without an Incubator

This morning I googled: [where is the right place to incubate startup]. Or at least I thought I did. IE automatically placed my search in Bing. Perplexed with the results, I opened up Chrome and searched Google. Here is the side-by-side comparison of the results of each search:

While Google returned what I expected to find, Bing introduced me to a multitude of results. Curious, I decided to click on ‘How to Hatch a Goose Egg without an Incubator.’ Surprisingly, there were a lot of similarities in growing a startup to a fully fledged business.

Goose eggs must be incubated in order to hatch.

A business incubator is more than just a place that offers what most startups need initially: cheap rent. Incubators are focused on helping to launch and grow successful businesses.

You can approximate the effects of an incubator, but even with close supervision, only about half of birds hatched without a proper incubator survive.

Starting up inside an incubator with collaborative programs can really help entrepreneurs take that great idea and enthusiasm and combine it with essential business know-how, work space, support services, and provide connections to the right contacts and mentors. And often of greater importance, offer legitimacy for venture funds looking to invest.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging.

Let’s face it. Starting up a business is hard. And first-time entrepreneurs need all the help they can get.

Andy Schwab, President of First Flight Venture Center – a business incubator located in the Research Triangle Park, shares his thoughts on the Research Triangle Region and how FFVC helps people think through their ideas, form companies, and grow them into businesses. (Thanks to our marketing intern, Ross Maloney, UNC ’12)

Bottom-line: Are you getting the right resources you need for the business you’re trying to do?

Learn more about the invaluable resources and support organizations in the Research Triangle Region to help you startup.

Startup + NC IDEA GRANT = Winning company

Here’s an idea. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a fund that provides grants for high-tech start-up companies and doesn’t ask for any equity in return?

There is such an organization:  NC IDEA

NC IDEA realizes the powerful role that small grants can play in further developing high-tech start-up companies. With many new technologies not successfully transferred out of universities and research institutions because of a funding gap between government and private equity support, NC IDEA implements its grants program to help fill the gap.

Because its grants are relatively small (in the range of $10,000 – $50,000) NC IDEA grants are targeted at companies where the grant funds can make a significant impact on the company’s progress. Read more »