Enterprise Development Corp. expands with Miami incubator
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Published Friday, November 20, 2009 8:00 am
by Bill Frogameni
The Enterprise Development Corp. of South Florida (EDC) is opening a 12,000-square-foot technology incubator in downtown Miami to nurture startup companies.
The center, called Incubate Miami, will offer discounted rent to young tech companies. The benefit for companies occupying the incubator will be twofold, explained Jane Teague, EDC’s executive director: The rent is cheap and the proximity to other tech companies offers synergistic opportunities.
“Incubation is a proven economic development tool for companies in early stages, when they’re particularly vulnerable,” she said.
The EDC currently works with several startup companies at the Florida Atlantic University Research Park. EDC shepherds young companies for the first couple years of their lives – helping them shape business plans, recruit talent and court potential investors. EDC, funded by both public and private sources, does not charge for its services.
The Miami incubator is slated to open Jan. 1.
Tenants will sublet from an affiliate of Digiport, which offers data connectivity and collocation services. Teague credits Digiport President Marc Billings with conceiving the Miami incubator. Billings approached her in April, she said, and the idea of expanding EDC’s physical presence in downtown Miami made sense.
Billings said he hopes the incubator will help spur the tech sector downtown and make the area more vibrant.
“There’s really a significant vacancy right now in income generated through tech companies,” he said.
Incubate Miami’s $156,000 budget will come from Miami-Dade County, Teague said. Miami-Dade’s contribution is more than double the $75,000 it gave to EDC in 2009, she noted.
Juan Porras, currently a project manager for EDC and the Florida Institute for the Commercialization of Public Research (another program EDC oversees), will be the onsite project manager for Incubate Miami.
The Miami tech incubator is another sign of EDC’s growth. Despite the recession – or maybe because of it – EDC’s overall budget and level of activity are up, Teague said.
EDC has worked with 11 percent more entrepreneurs in the first quarter of the fiscal year begun July 1 than at the same time last year, Teague said. EDC worked with 297 entrepreneurs in 2009, up 7 percent from the 278 the organization saw in 2008, she noted.
The upward trend is partly because people tend to hang up their own shingle when they lose a job, Teague said, but also because confidence is returning to the economy.
EnContext Media is one of the startups that sought EDC’s help in the last few months. The Boynton Beach-based company is working on a product that would allow video content providers – whether online or on television – to encode video with advertising software.
President and CEO Jean Touboul said the goal is to allow someone viewing a video to click on a TV star’s earrings, for instance, and be taken to an online outlet that lets them purchase those same earrings. Everything in the video would hypothetically be for sale.
EDC has helped introduce EnContext to potential investors, Touboul said, and the company is hoping to move into the technology incubator at FAU next month.
EDC’s budget for 2010 is also up a notch, to $484,000 from $468,000 in 2009, Teague said.
So far, no companies have committed to the Miami incubator, but there’s been a high level of interest, she said.
One startup considering the move is Yaibi, which is developing social communication and collaboration software for educational settings. Currently based in Coral Gables and planning a March 15 product launch, the company could benefit from being near other startups, co-founder Sebastian Merizalde said.
“It’s a great environment, a great concept,” he said.
Photo by Mark Freerks
Jane Teague, Marc Billings and Juan Porras at Enterprise Development Corp.’s Incubate Miami offices.
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