By Allan Maurer
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC—First Flight Venture Center (FFVC) has won the prestigious overall “Best Science Based Incubator,” award from the international organization, the Science Alliance. John Draper, president and director of the Center, who helped rescue the FFVC from near collapse when North Carolina withdrew state support several years ago, says its re-emergence is a “multi-beer story.”
The award was presented at the annual conference on Best Practices in Science Based Incubators in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Draper, who flew to Copenhagen to accept the award by a circuitous money-saving route, tells TechJournal South that he hopes the award helps draw attention to the FFVC’s effectiveness as a technology start-up incubator. Formerly, while state-funded, the organization had a less well-defined purpose and a large, unwieldy board.
This is not the first award the FFVC won from Science Alliance. In last year’s contest, it was second best incubator, best in the U.S. in 2004, was number three internationally in 2005. An international jury of incubator experts selects the award-winners. They review both the performance of the incubator manager and that of its tenant firms.
Companies such as Overture Networks, Affinergy, and Advanced Liquid Logic have successfully graduated from the Center and it’s currently at near capacity with all of its labs filled.
Draper, an attorney and serial entrepreneur himself, took the helm at FFVC after the state cut off its funding. He steered it into Chapter 11 bankruptcy for financial reorganization.
The venture center has since paid off about 50 percent of its debts to the tune of about $1 million at “100 cents on the dollar,” says Draper, who hopes to pay off the rest completely as well. “Most non-profits that go into Chapter 11 never emerge from it,” he points out.
“We were able to form a plan to use our assets from investments in start-ups to repay creditors. In a little over two years, we’ve paid off 50 percent. With one or two more good financial results, my plan is to pay it all. That’s pretty unusual for anything that goes into and out of bankruptcy.”
Draper also chose to look to the strengths of the Research Triangle, where the incubator is located and focus solely on technology companies, including providing some of the most affordable, flexible wet-lab space around for biotech and pharmaceutical start-ups.
Additionally, he slimmed the Center’s board at first to three, then recently adding two more, which he says “is probably about the right size.” It isn’t just the size of the Center’s board that helped make a difference, but also the people on it. Fred Hutchison, a founding partner of Hutchison Law Group, a Triangle-based firm that focuses on venture capital securities and mergers and acquisitions, is chair.
Other members are: Charles Hayes, president and CEO of the Research Triangle Regional Partnership; William F. Little, formerly senior VP for academic affairs at the University of North Carolina; and Robert K. McMahan, senior advisor to Gov. Mike Easley for science and technology, and Ken Tindall, the NC Biotech Center’s senior VP for science and business development.
It’s a mix of government, academic, economic development and business people who bring a great deal in the way of contacts and expertise to the Center without time-consuming squabbles, which occasionally plagued the Center’s previous board.
Draper says the FFVC, which currently receives no state funding, has asked the NC General Assembly for a $500,000 grant to refurbish four older lab spaces and create several new ones. “We would like to do one for materials science,” he says.
That would be for companies working with solid state materials such as transistors or anyone else working with what Draper calls “unattractive chemicals.” Such labs need special containment or venting equipment to protect both workers and the environment.
“My sense is we’re not going to get it (the grant) but I’d love to be surprised,” Draper says.
Draper instituted other changes at the Center that helped it prosper. See our February print edition for more on how he propelled an incubator thought to be on its last legs to award-winning prominance.
For more information about the First Flight Venture Center see: www.ffvcnc.org
Contact Allan Maurer at: allan@techjournalsouth.com
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