SSTI Digest

Robbie Melton has been named the executive director and CEO of the High Technology Development Corporation. Gov. Bobby Jindal has appointed Louisiana Tech University president Les Guice to chair the Louisiana Innovation Council. Brian Cummings, formerly Ohio State University’s vice president of technology commercialization, has joined Alta Ventures as the Midwest representative. KP Reddy, community catalyst at ATDC, has been named interim general manager. Previously, Michael Hersh held the position of general manager. The Michigan State University Foundation has named David Washburn, president and CEO of the University of Tennessee Research Foundation, as its executive director. Gov. Rick Snyder created the Michigan Office for New Americans and named Bing Goei as its director. The office is tasked with attracting and retaining highly skilled immigrants. In New Hampshire NH-ICC and the abi Innovation Hub have merged and will be known as the abi HUB. The new entity will promote innovation, commercialization and acceleration.

Last year, U.S. venture capitalists invested about $10.7 billion in seed and early stage companies, 17.1 percent higher than 2012, according to data from the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Moneytree survey.  Though the overall venture capital (VC) market has returned to about the same level of activity as before the economic crisis, investment in seed and early stage companies has grown by more than a third. Most of this increase is attributable to growth in early stage investment, but seed activity has grown as well (as discussed in another article). Previously, SSTI reported on a number of trends in the U.S. VC market during the period from 2008-13, including overall dollars and deals by state, per capita dollars and deals by state and each state’s share of national venture capital activity. SSTI has now prepared tables of seed and early stage venture investment and average deal size by state during the 2008-13 period. Download the tables in Excel format (xlsx)… While the U.S. seed and early stage capital market has never shown consistent growth year-after-year, it has generally trended up over the…

Tech Talkin’ Govs: Part III The third installment of SSTI’s Tech Talkin’ Govs series includes excerpts from speeches delivered in Delaware, Michigan, Missouri and New Mexico. Read part I and part II. Delaware Gov. Jack Markell, State of the State Address, Jan. 23, 2014 “As we send more of our students into higher education, we need to make sure that they have a roadmap from the classroom to employment, and that our major employers are working with our universities so that our youth are prepared for the workforce. I’m pleased to announce today that DuPont has agreed to partner with our colleges on this effort. “They will work to identify skills needed for entry-level positions, match those skills with courses offered by our colleges, and provide internships. ... “...  Let’s also ensure that those students who choose an accelerated career path – one that doesn’t involve a degree – get a head start on their futures. “This fall, we will roll out a new two-year comprehensive program in manufacturing technologies for high school juniors and seniors. The…

Michigan’s University Research Corridor (URC), an alliance between the state’s three largest higher education institutions, leads its peer clusters in generating high-tech talent and ranks second overall in innovation activity, according to a report commissioned by URC. The corridor, which includes Michigan State University, University of Michigan and Wayne State University, outperforms peer university clusters in Northern California, North Carolina’s Research Triangle region and Massachusetts’ Route 128 Corridor, ranking second only to the universities of Southern California. Among the report’s findings, the Michigan URC conferred 32,483 graduate and undergraduate degrees, higher than any of its peer universities clusters in 2012. Michigan’s URC also topped the list in medical degrees and ranked second in high-demand degrees. Researchers estimate that the URC contributed about $16.6 billion to the state economy in FY12. This estimate includes faculty and staff wages, university operating expenditures, student expenditures and alumni earnings. URC activity boosted the state’s tax revenue by about $449 million and led to…

Crowdfunding was poised to make a major splash on startup financing in 2013, aided by the passage of the 2012 JOBS Act, a projected explosion in the number of crowdfunding portals and the adoption of state crowdfunding exemptions. However, the crowdfunding industry did not have the anticipated gamechanging impact on startup financing, mostly due to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) cautious approach to the adoption of the crowdfunding rules mandated by the JOBS ACT. The SEC eased into the crowdfunding era by allowing for the general solicitation by businesses to raise equity from accredited investors via secure web-based portals. Finally, late in 2013 the SEC released proposed rules that would allow for equity crowdfunding from unaccredited investors sometime in 2014. States Push Ahead with Intrastate Crowdfunding ExemptionsWhile the SEC carefully developed its rules and regulations, states developed their own intrastate crowdfunding exemptions focused specifically on increasing the availability of  and retaining startup capital in their communities. On December 31, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder signed into law Public Act 264 that will allow…

Because universities are increasingly seen as hubs for regional economic development, many institutions are reorganizing their business engagement efforts to eliminate the barriers between universities and the innovation community. Recently, the University of New Hampshire, the University of Michigan Medical School and the University of Texas at Arlington all announced plans to streamline and redesign their innovation services, aiming to increase their contribution to regional job and business creation. In each case, these institutions are hoping to create stronger connections with the private sector by creating a single office to engage with entrepreneurs, businesses and investors. This week, the University of New Hampshire (UNH) announced the launch of UNH Innovation, a new office that will incorporate the former Office of Research Partnerships and Commercialization, laboratory services, equipment and facilities rental, and various other university venture and economic development programs. UNH Innovation intends to combine these functions with a number of new services, including mentoring and internship programs. By centralizing all of these functions into one…

President Obama launched the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership Steering Committee “2.0.” Former SSTI board member Luis Proenza, president of The University of Akron is part of the steering committee chaired by Andrew Liveris, president, chairman, and CEO of the Dow Chemical Company, and Rafael Reif, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Mark Kittrell has been appointed the president of the Iowa Innovation Corporation. OK Gov. Mary Fallin has named Secretary of State Larry Parman as director of the Oklahoma Department of Commerce and secretary of commerce. Both positions require Senate confirmation. The University of Alabama at Birmingham launched the Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. David Winwood, CEO of the research foundation, will be executive director of the institute, and Kathy Nugent, director of the biotechnology program at UAB, the institute’s managing director. Tim Franklin has accepted the position of associate VP for business and economic development and special advisor to the president at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. James Ruble has been named director of the Ohio…

In the days before the federal government shutdown, the White House released details of a $300 million cross-agency strategy to revive the Detroit economy following the city government’s bankruptcy filing. Most of the funding comes from existing programs that will either continue to support efforts in Detroit or will now allocate a portion of their grants, loans or services to Detroit-based recipients. However, while innovation and entrepreneurship is a major plank of the strategy, little of the $300 million will directly benefit technology-based economic development programs. Instead, the White House has announced that it will supplement the work of community-focused foundations, which plan to provide $22 million for small business efforts in the city. The federally funded aspects of the Detroit strategy mostly focus on revitalizing and redeveloping blighted neighborhoods and improving the region’s transportation systems. Nearly $150 million would be dedicated to demolition of blighted properties and community development, while nearly $140 million would help upgrade and install transit systems. Additional federal funding would be provided to improve public…

Recently, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder announced a statewide Regional Prosperity Initiative — a voluntary, competitive grant process for existing state-designated planning regions and metropolitan planning organizations. The plan will divide the state into 10 zones with the intent of empowering local and regional partners to develop a consensus vision and implementation plan for economic success. Under the initiative, all state government departments also will begin serving the 10 regions, enhancing service delivery and encouraging communities to collaborate on a regional basis. Although specific details still are being worked through, starting in 2014, regions will compete for grant funding to support economic development efforts including establishment of regional prosperity collaboratives, councils and boards. The Initiative was signed into law as a part of the state’s FY14 budget (59 PA 2013). Read the Regional Prosperity Initiative FAQ… Michigan joins New York and Tennessee as states that have shifted their economic development efforts to focus on regional zones. In April 2011, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and lawmakers agreed to establish a regional…

For several states, this year's legislative session resulted in continued austerity toward new investments and level funding for established tech-based initiatives producing good results. Workforce initiatives seemed to be the exception, garnering greater attention from state leaders eager to boost employment numbers — especially in high-tech fields. While the existence of a STEM worker shortage has been a hotly debated topic among policy groups (see the May 22, 2013 issue of the Digest), some state leaders, including lawmakers in California, Indiana and Michigan, have prioritized high-tech job training to produce more skilled workers through increased funding for new or established programs in the recently enacted budgets. In California, lawmakers dedicated $15 million over the next five years for job training as part of the Clean Energy Jobs Act (Proposition 39) approved by voters in November 2012. The budget allocation complements a measure to establish a training program in the California Workforce Investment Board to prepare disadvantaged veterans and youth for the state's growing sector of green economy jobs. The bill, AB 114, recently passed in the…

Yuka Nagashima, executive director of the High Technology Development Corp. and center director for the Innovate Hawaii program, has resigned from both posts and will leave the state agency in August. Nagashima will be leaving for Denmark to support her husband's research career. Len Higashi, current senior economic development manager, was selected to become the acting executive director. Raja Krishnamoorthi has been appointed vice chairman of the Illinois Innovation Council by Gov Pat Quinn. Jason Hall has been named the St. Louis Regional Chamber's vice president for business development and corporate counsel, effective June 28. Hall's most recent position was as deputy director for the Missouri Department of Economic Development. E. Gordon Gee, president of The Ohio State University announced plans to retire, effective July 1. Executive vice president and provost Joseph Alutto was named interim president. Rep. Jo Bonner announced he will retire from Congress on Aug. 15 in order to take a newly created position of vice chancellor for government relations and economic development at the University of Alabama System. Joan Dunbar…

Graduates of Michigan State University, the University of Michigan and Wayne State University have started or acquired businesses at double the national average rate among college graduates since 1996, according to a report released by the Michigan University Research Corridor (URC). About 19 percent of all graduates have started their own business, and these businesses were 1.5 times more likely than the national average to remain open over the past five years. URC attributes their success to the comprehensive entrepreneurial curriculum available at the corridor's institutions. Read the report...