BOULDER INNOVATION CENTER CELEBRATES 5th ANNIVERSARY WITH STRONGEST-EVER ECONOMIC IMPACT REPORT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) April 27, 2010 -- BOULDER, Colo. (April 27, 2010) – The Boulder Innovation Center (BIC) celebrated its five-year anniversary today by releasing its 2009 Economic Impact Report, showing the strongest results ever since the entrepreneurial support organization’s founding in 2005.

“Despite the economic challenges of the last five years, the BIC has shown steady and consistent annual increases in the staffing and funding of our start-up company clients, and in helping to commercialize technologies developed at the University of Colorado, and now as well at the Colorado School of Mines,” said BIC Executive Director Tim Bour. “We’re very pleased to report that in 2009, the BIC showed the sharpest increases ever in generating new jobs, revenues and capital.”

Since 2005, BIC companies created nearly 250 jobs and more than $30 million in salaries and wages, with 135 new jobs created in 2009 alone. Business revenues generated over the five-year period totaled $59.4 million, with nearly half that amount achieved in the last year. “Everything’s accelerating, and perhaps most encouraging is an almost four-fold increase in new capital formation to $21.7 million in 2009,” said Bour.

The study substantiates the BIC’s mentor-driven process and capital development approach, and validates its key industry focus areas – bioscience, renewable/clean-tech, aerospace, nanotech / optical / engineering, information technology, and natural / organic – as major expansion markets moving forward in the new decade.

“The economy is on the upswing, with Colorado – and Boulder in particular – leading the way,” said Bour. “There is a unique confluence of cutting-edge scientific research and spirited entrepreneurship in Colorado, as well as a dynamic venture and seed capital network. The BIC’s approach to accelerate Tech Transfer commercialization has proven to be a key ingredient to the recipe for success at the University of Colorado.”

The BIC has worked with 65 CU faculty research groups over the last five years, and has formed partnerships with, among others, Whole Foods, the 8th Continent Project, the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI) and the Colorado Initiative in Molecular Biotechnology (CIMB).

Serial entrepreneur and BIC Board Chairman Robert Gill calls 2009 the year “that everything really came together for the BIC. Boulder’s legacy of nurturing the next wealth- and workforce-generating new companies is a national model for bringing the economic recovery to Main Street. The BIC has become a critical conduit for research, entrepreneurs, capital and new ideas, and five years of accelerated results proves it.”

About the Boulder Innovation Center

The Boulder Innovation Center is one of America’s premier entrepreneurial support organizations. With its hand-selected team of mentors and advisors, the BIC defines a new model for cost-effective business incubation across key industry sectors holding the most promise for the community, global economies and the environment. Lo

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