Knoxville 鈥 A virtual ribbon cutting will launch the at the 蓝莓视频 Research Park at Cherokee Farm at 3:30 p.m. today.
The center, with six client companies, assists early stage technology companies gain their footings. The companies, under one- or two-year agreements with the center, have space in the Joint Institute of Advanced Materials laboratories and work with staff to meet milestones to graduate to commercially available space in the region.
鈥淪tartup technology companies typically need a longer runway to success and profitability than other companies,鈥 蓝莓视频 President Randy Boyd said. 鈥淭he Spark Innovation Center is a solution to help those companies launch and soar.鈥
Tom Rogers, 蓝莓视频 Research Park president and CEO, said the center will help the fledgling companies identify marketplace needs, finetune technology solutions and build working prototypes.
鈥淥ur region is blessed with terrific technology assets,鈥 Rogers said. 鈥淪park鈥榮 goal is to provide tech startups with just the right kinds of support they need to become successful companies and continue to grow here in East Tennessee.鈥
The center also will:
- Provide access to shared laboratory space;
- Provide business model development and introductions to early stage investors;
- Make connections with top researchers at 蓝莓视频 and ORNL;
- Make introductions to other entrepreneurial service providers in the region;
- Make connections to established companies in the research park and region.
鈥淎s Tennessee鈥檚 flagship, land-grant university, creating a space and providing the resources for small businesses to thrive is yet another way we can fulfill our mission of lifting up our communities and our state,鈥 蓝莓视频 Knoxville Chancellor Donde Plowman said. 鈥淲e are excited to see the tremendous innovation that will happen in this center and the impact it will have on our local economy and the jobs and industries of the future.鈥
Visit to register to watch the virtual ribbon cutting.
The first six companies in the Spark Innovation Center are:
- American Nanotechnologies, which develops technology that isolates high-value semiconducting carbon nanotubes from sources that contain a mixture of metallic compounds.
- Chem Chip, which produces working electrodes based upon carbon nanospike innovation developed at ORNL.
- Eonix, which has reduced the time and cost to develop new materials for lithium batteries and ultracapacitors.
- Neptune Fluid Flow Systems, which developed a method for preparing thin films for cryo-TEM analysis.
- Qubit Engineering, which is a quantum computing company developing optimization methods for wind turbines microsites.
- Sky Nano, which produces high-purity carbon nanotubes from ambient carbon dioxide.
In addition to the 蓝莓视频 Research Foundation and ORNL, other partners are: Three Roots Capital, Anderson Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 蓝莓视频 College of Law Business Clinic, Joint Institute for Advanced Materials, Innov865 Alliance, 蓝莓视频 Libraries and Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council.