Region's technology cred may get a boost; Nonprofit group gets $22.5 million to help young companies

When TechColumbus leaders looked around central Ohio in recent years, they saw the region's potential to become a tech hot spot.

What they didn't find was enough funding for early stage endeavors, or the kind of expertise needed to help tech companies prosper.

Now, armed with $22.5 million in new funding, the nonprofit group is implementing a plan to address the area's technology shortcomings.

"The thing that's missing and that's now emerging is a real culture of innovation," said Tim Haynes, TechColumbus' vice president of member services and marketing.

"I don't think it's too long before we'll be compared with the likes of Austin, Texas."

He's optimistic because "the assets that are here in this region are incredible. They would be the envy of any other region."

Those include Ohio State University, Battelle, several major health-care organizations and other industry.

The new program will focus on life sciences, advanced materials and information technology.

TechColumbus was formed in 2005 from the merger of the Columbus Technology Council, a membership organization, and the Business Technology Center, a technology business incubator. The merger also created a management agreement between TechColumbus and Ohio State University's Science and Technology Campus Corp.

TechColumbus now serves as a membership organization and a business incubator. It also provides resources and help to people developing technologies and businesses that depend on technology.

In the past year, TechColumbus has been awarded $15 million in funding from the state's Third Frontier initiative, and it raised $7.5 million in matching funds from local sources.

TechColumbus officials have spent the past several months developing the program and are just beginning to fund companies from it.

The new program, called TechStart, will identify potential new companies; work with research facilities to "spin out new startups from their labs"; help young companies get federal grants and funding; provide grants to test ideas for companies; and help young companies with business planning.

One of the goals is to double the number of ideas being vetted for new technologies to 600 in three years.

Of the $15 million from the state, roughly half will be used to provide coaching and mentoring services, and the other half will be devoted to grants and loans to companies, Haynes said.

One of the key elements is helping early stage companies that can't attract money from traditional investors. TechColumbus will provide funding and also will place its own experts in the companies to help them develop.

"We want to mitigate risk for downstream investors," and create companies that can attract investment later or grow through sales, said Steve Clark, vice president of business incubation services.

TechColumbus doesn't just write a check when it provides grant money, Clark said. The organization helps companies identify resources -- such as help with a market study or prototype -- and then pays the source providing those services.

Loans and equity also are available for companies that are starting to sell their products.

TechStart is part of the state's Entrepreneurial Signature Program, started last year, said Norm Chagnon, executive director of the state's Third Frontier Commission. The state program allows organizations in different regions of the state to define their community's needs and design programs to address them.

"The whole general notion of entrepreneurial support in the economy is really critical," Chagnon said. Research has shown that job growth likely will come from startup companies and small businesses, and "that small-business engine is around companies that are technology oriented."

They are the kinds of companies that "contribute to the transformation of economies," Chagnon said.

TechColumbus also is striving to increase its membership, which serves to connect companies with like-minded organizations to network, collaborate and learn. The organization has 350 companies as members and wants to reach 1,000 by 2010.

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