What’s the best place for a startup that serves other startups?
An incubator.
That’s the case with Siëo at Chapman University’s incubator, known as Launch Labs.
Siëo began offering consulting services a few weeks ago—it doesn’t officially kick off operations until January—and already has snagged five clients from the roster its fellow Launch Labs participants.
Siëo’s clients range from sustainable palm oil production to event planning to augmented reality.
“Launch Labs has been an amazing resource for our team,” said Siëo founder and Chief Executive Austin Stofer. “It not only provides us with free office space, it houses 10 other teams that we can consult and learn from.”
Launch Labs is one of a batch of incubators scattered throughout Orange County. Each provides a petri dish of sorts, giving entrepreneurs a chance to develop, adjust plans, and develop some more side by side with other entrepreneurs.
Some are set up by universities; others are run privately by individuals or corporations.
Incubators differ from business accelerators—a more recent trend in business development. Incubators typically have startups in residence, which either get free space or pay rent. Accelerators, on the other hand, typically have programs that help startups scale and grow, providing services and links to potential investors, but not space. The consultations offered by accelerators can come with a fee or equity, but are often free, with sponsorships covering the cost.
Here is a sampling of some OC incubators:
Launch Labs
Chapman University created the incubator, which opened in 2014 and moved to its current location on West Palm in Orange last year. There are close to 20 startups in residence here.
Siëo’s team of 10 has a variety of skills, including design, coding, marketing and product development.
UCI
Applied Innovation: The Innovation Institute launched at the University of California-Irvine in February 2014 with a $5 million gift from the Newport Beach-based Beall Family Foundation. Its physical space is The Cove in University Research Park in Irvine. It houses several startups and those serving them, such as VC firms.
Executive Director Richard Sudek came from Launch Labs to run Applied Innovation.
Applied Innovation will soon add 15,000 square feet of space in an adjacent building in University Research Park where a Starbucks is housed. Construction on the office space began on Nov. 1 with an expected move-in date around mid-February, said Cathy Lawhon, senior director, media relations and publications at UCI.
The Cove already occupies 31,000 square feet in University Research Park, which encompasses 185 acres owned by UCI and built and leased out by Irvine Company.
California State Fullerton
The 950-square-foot facility in Placentia opened under the auspices of the Mihaylo College of Business and Economics’ Center for Entrepreneurship in January 2015. The community-based effort hosts several startups, providing teams of mentors and students to assist each. The incubator is open to students, alums and community members. It provides a learning environment for early-stage companies, said Director John Jackson.
Entrepreneur Jim Meehan, who’s worked in manufacturing for more than 40 years and recently started his own company, said he enjoys being around other entrepreneurs at the incubator. He’s been leasing space there since August.
“It’s a great way to get out of isolation and get great ideas,” he said. “I was working in my garage.”
CSUF is in the process of opening a second incubator in Irvine, with an expected grand opening early next year. The incubator is intended to have more of a tech focus, Jackson said.
Santa Ana College
The incubator is on the second floor of the Digital Media Center run by the Rancho Santiago Community College District as part of the community college. It’s on Bristol Street, about two miles south of the main campus of Santa Ana College.
The incubator includes 24 office spaces, executive conference rooms and a full-time business service coordinator who assists the companies with whatever they need. It hosts a CEO Roundtable Meeting the last Tuesday of every month, where the startup executives share their accomplishments and challenges.
The incubator houses about 12 companies ranging from educational technology to security software. All get access to student business teams and interns that provide digital media arts services.
One of the companies leasing space there, Xentaurs LLC, launched in April, grew from one person to 15 in six months and is currently hiring, said Chief Executive Juan Guevara. It started with one office space and is now up to three offices comprising 520 square feet, he added.
Xentaurs helps companies with their digital business initiatives, like big data and machine learning, “making us one of the few players in the industry built from the ground up for the new needs in this digital age,” Guevara said.
The company has signed strategic partnerships with companies, including San Jose-based Cisco and Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft. It surpassed its initial revenues for 2016, and expanded operations to Denver and the East Coast, he added.
Started by Individuals
EvoNexus was co-founded by Rory Moore in 2009 in San Diego, and an Irvine offshoot opened in January 2015. Moore co-founded San Diego-based Peregrine Semiconductor Corp., a manufacturer of radio frequency chips, which eventually went public.
His Irvine incubator is supported by sponsors and housed at The Vine as part of Irvine Company’s real estate portfolio of startup space in Orange County. Irvine Co. provides the free space to EvoNexus, which in turn, provides free space to its startups. Startups must apply for acceptance into EvoNexus, and they can stay for up to two years. EvoNexus doesn’t take any equity in the startups; though it does provide resources and mentors.
One of the companies in residence that’s made news lately is Kadho Sports, a business unit of Kadho focused on integrating neuroscience and machine learning into sports to help athletes improve decision-making in “critical game-time situations.”
It just announced a multi year partnership with the University of Arizona, which will use the company’s sports training software for its baseball, softball and volleyball teams.
Kadho Sports already provides its software to national teams, including those involved with the NCAA and Major League Baseball. It also was named an official supplier to USA Volleyball this year and created a custom volleyball training platform for the National Team players that improves on-court visual recognition and decision-making skills. It’s also in the midst of developing customized technology with its global partners for other sports, including football, soccer and tennis.
Fast Start
Fast Start Studio is the creation of entrepreneur Michael Sawitz, who started the 4,000-square-foot incubator in the Irvine Spectrum area about four years ago. There are about 27 startups in residence, although there are non-resident companies that the facility also serves. They cover about 20 industry sectors, including med-tech, clean-tech and virtual reality. Sawitz more recently added a podcast called “Fast Start Talk,” which features interviews with investors and other key players in the startup ecosystem.
One startup under the wing of Fast Start is Nanovated Hydrotherapy, which has licensed a patented form of hydrotherapy with applications for drinking water and bathing water. Both are heavily oxygenated. The bath water is meant to enhance the recovery for athletes and others seeking to heal faster, co-founder and Chief Executive Christopher Warren said.
Nanovated’s first client is the Center for New Medicine in Irvine, which is using the bath water on its patients, Warren said.
Warren said that he’s grateful that Fast Start takes on early-stage companies like Nanovated.
“Michael is like this grandfather figure that shepherds some really early-stage companies and allows them to go through the process to pivot and discover what their business model truly is and how the market plays out in an environment that’s not programmed,” Warren said. “It’s really allowing for each entrepreneur to go through their own process.”
Nanovated was self-funded until it received $100,000 in seed funding from an angel investor, Warren said. Its headquarters are in Newport Beach.
Sawitz requires startups to commit to only six hours a week at his incubator at Tuesday and Wednesday workshops.
“The rest of the time, they can work from their laptop or tablet,” he said. “They can meet with mentors and subject matter experts here or somewhere else.”
Tech Focus
Costa Mesa-based InnovateOC is an incubator and co-working space for tech startups. It has an accompanying venture capital fund called IOC Ventures of approximately $275,000. The incubator houses eight early-stage companies and works with them closely, including teaching, supervising, consulting and “parenting,” according to Evan Jafa, who founded the incubator in April 2015.
He founded it based on his experience with Cloudify Inc., one of the earliest private cloud companies. Jafa’s the president of the company which provides consulting services to help businesses use cloud technologies. Some of the employees of Cloudify are involved with the incubator.
The incubator looks for startups that are committed to their ideas and puts business plans together for them, he said.
Senior management at Microsoft’s BizSpark—which provides software and services specifically for startups— selected InnovateOC to receive a three-year package worth $368,000 for its startups.
One of the goals of the incubator is to partner with other incubators and universities around the world, such as Bethlehem, Pa.-based Lehigh University, the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Houston Medical Center’s incubator and Tel-Aviv University.
