A growing cluster of startup incubators, makerspaces and co-working facilities are one of the biggest drivers of local innovation. Each of them have their own focus, flavor and future aspirations. Techwire profiles a half dozen of these locations.
InnoGrove
It may be 15 miles from the youthful, hip and energetic startup scene in midtown Sacramento, but InnoGrove is determined to make Elk Grove just as competitive in technology innovation.Led by chemist and former medical researcher Steve Barnett, InnoGrove sprouted from a Peet’s Coffee klatch to become a dedicated co-working space for about 35 local residents — many of them decades older than their midtown millennial counterparts — to grow technology companies in fields like data management, audio visual systems, materials science and other electronics in south Sacramento County. The group’s foundation also runs educational tech programs, including one specifically supporting women in technology as well as electronics education for children and adults.
“We knew there were many people in the tech field who lived in Elk Grove but who commute to work in downtown Sacramento, Folsom or the Bay Area,” said Barnett. “We started it as a resource for people who would like a co-working space near where they live. It’s a competitive world out there, and it’s our role to help make it valuable for companies to form and stay in Elk Grove.”
Urban Hive
The first dedicated co-working space in Sacramento, the Urban Hive on H Street in midtown, now 7 years old, has 250 of what its website says are “dreamers, builders and changemakers” and a wait list to warrant development of a second location in 2017. Its buoyant co-founder, Brandon Weber, said the Urban Hive is home to an equal number of creatives and techies, with healthy handfuls of nonprofit workers and other professionals.“We have a unique vibe, and it seems everyone has something in common, even though one is an attorney and the other is a coder,” Weber said. “It’s a space where people treat each other really well.”
The Hive also provides office space to both national — think Pandora and Lyft — and local startups such as Rocket Department, a team of engineers and designers that creates Web and mobile solutions that connect communities and enhance the local tech ecosystem.
In the mix are successful entrepreneurs like venture capitalist-turned-entrepreneur Oleg Kaganovich and Capital Games (acquired by EA) founder Mark Otero. Both are launching new ventures out of the space.
“You have venture capitalists and scrappy startups, and they all share the same hallways,” Weber said. “They are literally running into each other every day. That’s where interesting conversations happen.”
I/O Labs
Another brainchild of Weber, I/O Labs will open in 2017 in a 30,000-square-foot space downtown with views of the new Golden 1 Center arena and an ambitious mission to build startups by addressing what he said are three big gaps in the region’s tech ecosystem: silos (failure to connect companies with startups), the desert (lack of funding) and the “black hole” (too little professional education).I/O Labs, newly designated by the state of California as the region’s innovation hub, will offer space for 20 companies and seed funding. The focus will be on the city’s core strengths: health, medicine, energy, education, transportation and civic technology.
I/O Labs was designated by the state of California as the region’s innovation hub.
Hacker Lab
With locations in midtown and Rocklin, Hacker Lab has carved out a niche as a makerspace for products as diverse as leather handbags, baby clothes and lighting. Hacker Lab also stands out with its unique partnership with Sierra College and a robust 500 members between the two locations.“We have fabrication, rapid prototyping equipment and a full inventory of tools and machines that can help people build anything they want,” said co-founder Eric Ulrich. “It’s a fun place, but everyone who comes in here is looking to make money.”
One success story is Ana Manzano, who created her eco-friendly children’s clothing company Ana Apple at the lab. Ana Apple has a retail shop in Old Sacramento, but Manzano still designs and makes her clothing in the makerspace. Ulrich also cites a Hacker Lab member who created tCheck.me, a device that tests the potency of cannabis oil so patients can safely use medical marijuana products.
The maker, Peichen Chang, used Hacker Lab tools to do the prototyping for the device and now sells his product online with the help of Sierra College students who provide engineering and marketing support for the company.
Hacker Lab also has a strong civic technology focus as a founding partner of the Code for Sacramento meetup group of volunteers that creates applications to help government entities make public data more available and useful.
Its future direction? “We want to double down on our education platform,” Ulrich said. “We see Hacker Lab as an economic engine going into underserved communities and providing resources there.”
Capsity
Founded in 2008, Capsity calls itself a “curated community of entrepreneurs,” a place with an eye on the “triple bottom line” of profit, people and the planet, said co-CEO Mai Linh Tompkins.Situated in a 4,500-square-foot former post office building on 21st Street in Midtown, Capsity hosts about 50 companies, a hub, as Tompkins said, “for accelerated serendipity.” Capsity stands out, she added, because two-thirds of its members are female business owners and because it’s the only co-working space that also owns a pizzeria.
Capsity is also a California Benefit Corporation, which Tompkins said means a focus on “doing well by doing good.” Capsity houses Oak Park Sol, for example, a group that works to revitalize spaces throughout the neighborhood by engaging residents, volunteers and donors on projects ranging from maintaining the community garden to beautification of the 34th Street offramp. Another Capsity project is the Hmongstory 40 Sacramento Exhibit celebrating Hmong cultural heritage and the 40-year refugee history in the U.S.
“Everything we do is in hopes that our members are positively impacting the community around us,” said Tompkins.
Capsity is expanding: It plans to break ground in 2017 for a second location on property it purchased in Oak Park.
Capsity focuses on the “triple bottom line”: profit, people and the planet.
Impact VC
Impact VC was created by Jack Crawford, former manager of Velocity Venture Capital in Folsom, in collaboration with two Silicon Valley investors, Dixon Doll and Eric Ball. With offices in Sacramento and Burlingame, the new company is investing directly into early stage tech companies, collaborating with corporate venture capital groups and running innovation programs. If the region’s co-working spaces ignite the innovation cycle, Crawford said Impact can accelerate and infuse capital in those ventures.Crawford called its signature event, Impact Global Venture Summit, at the new Golden 1 Arena on Nov. 14, “the most significant technology event in Sacramento business history,” where 20 local startups pitched their proposals for some 1,000 people, including representatives from 50 tech companies and more than 100 venture capitalists and other investors.
An impassioned cheerleader for the potential of local startups in the areas of agriculture, security, government, media and education, among other sectors, Crawford emphasized that the region is an integral part of the “technology triangle” that includes San Jose and San Francisco.
“We think there is tremendous innovation in Northern California capable to attack global marketing companies,” Crawford said. “There is real opportunity to generate investment returns and reshape the regional innovation economy with timely infusion of capital. That is what we are doing.”
This story is featured in the winter 2016 issue of Techwire magazine.
