New High-Tech Incubator in Irvine Has Dual Purpose
Southern California’s newest high-tech business incubator has an unusual dual strategy: to nurture the start-ups under its roof and to make sure those start-ups benefit other technology companies throughout the Southland.
Tenants of the Tech Coast Incubator, which opens today in Irvine, will be companies whose products and services can help technology firms from San Diego to Santa Barbara. Priority for placement in the 10,000-square-foot facility will go to companies focused on improving online education and training, network transmission and data storage capacity, and information management.
By supporting companies that will bring core technologies and services to Southern California, the impact of the Tech Coast Incubator will be felt beyond its walls, said Tech Coast Alliance founder Chip Parker, whose group will run the incubator. The Costa Mesa-based Tech Coast Alliance was founded in 1997 to boost the profile of high-tech companies throughout Southern California.
Two firms already have moved into the Tech Coast Incubator. Irvine-based IDSI has developed new technology for electronic publishing, knowledge management software and network searches. E-deliver, a spinoff of Santa Ana-based Towne AllPoints Communications, will focus on delivering products for e-commerce firms.
The incubator can accommodate about six start-ups, and Tech Coast Alliance President Peter Ponton said he expects it to reach capacity by January. Other sites are already being considered for a second Tech Coast Incubator, which could be open by spring, Ponton said.
In recent weeks, some of Southern California’s most prominent high-tech incubators--Pasadena-based Idealab and Santa Monica-based Ecompanies--announced they have raised their own venture capital to help fund start-ups under their roofs.
But the Tech Coast Incubator is taking a more traditional route. Instead of raising money on its own, it will help tenant companies find funding through established venture capital firms, said Parker, who is also chief executive of Tech Coast Alliance.
“We are 100% behind the Tech Coast Incubator,” said Brian Sullivan, chief executive of Rolling Oaks Enterprises, a venture capital firm based in Venice.
Executives from Silicon Valley Bank and the San Francisco Bay Area venture capital firm Technology Partners also expressed support for the Tech Coast Incubator.
The Tech Coast Alliance has spent more than $1 million in the last 20 months studying the state of Southern California’s technology industry clusters. The group plans to spend another $1.5 million--raised primarily from its board members--between now and the end of January to fund real estate improvements for the Tech Coast Incubator, the launch of the first issue of Tech Coast Magazine, and other marketing efforts, Ponton said.
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Times staff writer Karen Kaplan can be reached at Karen.Kaplan @latimes.com.
