New Tenant: VADXX Energy
Regional support of technology entrepreneurs is doing just fine, thank you very much. Our latest tenant, VADXX Energy:
- Received early-stage funding from the GLIDE Innovation Fund, founded by Lorain County Community College Foundation;
- Set up headquarters in the Akron Global Business Accelerator;
- Received support from the City of Akron in locating an appropriate facility for their pilot plan operations; and
- Is working with a company in Alliance to get their pilot plant machinery ready for operation.
So when Jim Garrett, VADXX CEO, was looking for a location to establish a Cleveland presence, all conversations led him to the MAGNET Innovation Center. VADXX is a promising company committed to adding jobs to the region and Jim loves to tell the story of being pleasantly surprised by not only the world-class level of support he has received, but the spirit of collaboration all partners have brought to the table.
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Quarterly Results
Once a quarter, we capture some basic statistics on how our companies are doing. For the period of June 2009 - August 2009, tenants in the MAGNET Innovation Center generated roughly: - $1.7M in sales
- $240,000 in outside investment
- 12 new jobs
We would also be remiss if we didn't mention a recent graduate, VOX Mobile. The company entered
the MAGNET incubator in mid 2008 with about 15 employees and quickly grew to
almost 30 highly skilled individuals.
Over the next year it saw it customer list grow substantially, and in mid 2009, it secured
a major contract with a national smartphone manufacturer to reprogram and retrofit devices that had
been returned. That contract involves
handling tens of thousands of units each month and VOX needed significant
expansion space for both materials handling and employees. Congratulations to our tenants, both past and present, on these fantastic results! |
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Tenant Get Together
October also saw a well-attended tenant get together at the incubator. Not only were incubator tenants present but most of the JumpStart TechLift Advisors, and representatives from Case Western Reserve University's STEP program.
The networking went great and I think several new connections were forged. I received many comments from incubator tenants appreciative of the inclusion of regional partners in our regular networking, and I'll look forward to inviting other partners to our December event.
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