Business Incubator Series: Bruce Wright And Molly Gilbert, Arizona Center for Innovation – Tucson (Part 5)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: Where do your revenues come from?

Bruce: First of all, we get grants from the university and other folks. We also charge fees to our clients. It’s on a sliding scale. In our first phase, startups pay a modest fee.

It increases in Mentored Launch, and then when they come into residence, they pay more fees. If they want to stay on longer beyond that, then they would move to regular lease rates. We generate revenue from our client fees, but that’s probably only about a third of our total budget.

The majority of the money to fund the incubator comes from the university and the park.

Irina: Do you have a fund attached to your incubator?

Bruce: We do not. We work closely with our angel group here in Tucson called the Desert Angels. They have helped to fund a number of our companies. The governor [of Arizona] this year created innovation grants for companies. I think two of our companies have won those grants this year. There are several venture capital funds here in Arizona. We’re constantly presenting our companies to those funds for funding as well. We don’t have our own venture fund or innovation fund.

Irina: Do you have any special initiatives at the moment?

Bruce: Yes. The two biggest initiatives are around our focus on solar energy development and border technology. The university and the tech park are pursuing a major initiative in solar research and development. As part of that, we’re focusing on business incubation for technologies in those fields.

The same is the case in border technology, where we’re really working to help companies bring to market technologies that would address border security, border operations and management. In the first case, the solar initiative is in partnership with our local utility, Tucson Electric Power. In the second case, the border technology, we’re working with the Department of Homeland Security.

Irina: What do you feel your limitations are?

Bruce: Our biggest limitation is we don’t have sufficient funds to do the job the way we want to. For example, right now, there’s a proposal to have us establish several different locations in the region for business incubation, not just here at the Science and Technology Park.

Of course, that’s going to require funding for operations, facilities and staff. We’re exploring how we will find those funding sources. I think the second big issue is finding the kinds of mentors and experts who can help our companies as they’re moving through the development process.

Obviously, the people who have that kind of expertise are busy. We’re not in a position to pay them for their assistance. They have to do it as voluntary work. It’s always challenging to find the right kind of mentor, expert to help the company, given whatever their issue is.

Irina: Where is the proposal regarding expansion coming from?

Bruce: There’s a lot of discussion within the university and the community about the need to expand and accelerate the technology commercialization that’s happening here in Tucson. There’re a lot of people who are involved in it. There’re our local economic development organization, our Desert Angels and venture capital funds, the city of Tucson, and, as I said, the university. They’ve all come together around the table.

The thought is that the Arizona Center for Innovation should expand so that it has a second incubator location in downtown Tucson. That might be focused around IT and software development. Another location is up in a suburb of Tucson called Ore Valley, which is a big center for drug development. We’re developing a new research park, a biopark. We would have a location there.

We’re now sorting through how we would create those sites, fund them, administer them, staff them. We’re doing that in an active dialogue with the community and the groups that I mentioned.

Irina: Thank you Bruce. Thank you Molly. I enjoyed learning about your work in Arizona.

This segment is part 5 in the series : Business Incubator Series: Bruce Wright And Molly Gilbert, Arizona Center for Innovation – Tucson
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