By guest author Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold Irina: At what stage do you usually prefer that businesses apply for incubation? Micah: We like to see them before they’ve closed their Series A round of funding, so anywhere between friends and family [funding] and revenue. Companies can come in with some revenue. But if they’ve closed
By guest authors Irina Patterson and Vandana Upadhyay Irina: Do you take equity in the companies that you incubate? Diane: We do. Because we are nonprofit we can’t technically enter into financial contracts with our companies. But we can enter into what’s called a pledge agreement. We’d talk to them, and the template for us
By guest authors Irina Patterson and Vandana Upadhyay Irina: Would you give us more details on your three programs? Diane: Yes. The first program is the eSpace incubator, which we have talked about quite a bit. The second program is called the Straight to Space (S2S). In this program, we provide entrepreneurial aerospace companies both in
By guest authors Irina Patterson and Vandana Upadhyay Diane: Once they become an official incubator company, the mentor helps them to develop a first order strategic plan. What are you going to accomplish in the next three to six months? Whom do you need to meet in order to be successful? These are some questions
By guest authors Irina Patterson and Vandana Upadhyay Diane: The other program we have is called the Venture Design program. And this is with the University of Colorado Aerospace Engineering Sciences program. We support a number of graduate hands-on and design projects in the aerospace department, in the hopes that one or more of them
By guest authors Irina Patterson and Vandana Upadhyay Irina: What would be an ideal company that could benefit from your incubation? Diane: It might be one to four people who have just earned what is called an SBIR grant [Small Business Innovation Research]. They may have earned a Phase I SBIR or NASA [National Aeronautics