20th Anniversary of the Austin Technology Incubator

5 comments / Posted on 20. Apr, 2009 by Austin Startup in Cleantech

Today’s guest post is by Aruni Gunasegaram, who runs operations for the ATI, blogs at entrepreMusings, and is a serial entrepreneur. She received her MBA from the University of Texas, and previously had gone back to teach business and entrepreneurship at the McCombs School of Business. Her side gig is BabbleSoft, a company that offers web and wireless based solutions to new parents.

The Austin Technology Incubator is 20 years old this year – 2009.  It was the brainchild of George Kozmetzky and Laura Kilcrease and its goal at inception was to foster economic development in the greater Austin area and create a learning laboratory for hundreds of University of Texas at Austin students.  It has far exceeded the wildest dreams of its founders!

Since its founding in 1989, ATI has worked with roughly 200 companies, which have raised over $750 million in investor capital. During the last eight months of the 2007/08 fiscal year, ATI worked with 24 companies, which raised $23 million in capital and created 150 jobs in central Texas. Economists estimated that this was worth $37 million in economic impact to Austin!  Each year over 200 UT faculty and students work with ATI member companies.

I started my first technology company, Isochron Data Corporation, at ATI back in 1998 and we graduated in 2001.  Isochron was sold in 2002, lived for 11 years, employed close to 70 people during its lifetime, gained profitability, raised $15.5 million in equity financing, and gained attention and money from one of the top most recognized names in the world – Coca-Cola.  It was one of the most exhilarating, fear inducing, get-a-glimpse-into-myself, roller coaster rides I’ve ever been on.  Second only to having kids!

At that time, ATI was following primarily a space model (i.e., ATI 1.0).  We rented space, saw some people occasionally but mostly fended for ourselves when it came to finding investors, advisors, employees, etc.  I did happen to chase out into the parking lot a guy who ended up being one of my favorite investors who was taking a tour with the then ATI Director.  We were young, inexperienced, and feeling our way around the best we could.

Having worked at ATI for over 9 months, I’ve discovered how things have changed.  The shift started a few years ago and now in the ATI 2.0 model, experienced Directors (IT, Wireless, Bioscience, Clean Energy) along with a talented team of Advisors help guide young companies to success.  About a year ago ATI did an analysis of admitted companies, and discovered that over 70% of these companies had received seed funding, including money from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund.  That’s amazing!

There is someone to call in the darkest hours to give you a reality check and someone to pat you on the back in your brightest.  There’s someone to help you pull your business and marketing plans together.  There are interns to help you with customer validation, market research, marketing materials, public relations and a whole lot more.  There are seminars, conferences (Clean Energy Venture Summit, Texas Wireless Summit), networking events (CleanTX.org, Solar Energy Entrepreneur’s Network) lunches, workshops, and happy hours to help foster a thriving community of entrepreneurs, investors, and advisors.

I wish I had this kind of network surrounding me when I was a young CEO of a high growth, angel/venture backed, high tech company so many years ago.  It would have certainly made a huge positive difference in my daily existence!

ATI is generously supported by The University of Texas at Austin IC2 Institute, City of Austin, Austin Energy, State Energy Conservation Office and all of our Trusted Partners.

ATI started as an experiment 20 years ago and this month 11 companies will be graduating: Accuwater, Actacell, Affinegy, Austin Biofuels, eVapt, Monebo Technologies, Netcast HD, Phurnace Software, Solar Array Ventures, Venti Energy, and Xitronix that are now on to the next stages of their evolution.  We wish them well and look forward to continuing to help the Austin technology ecosystem thrive and grow!

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Tags: Clean-Tech, Guest Blogger