Rose-Hulman ventures: boosting Indiana's innovation economy.

• Author: Mayer, Kathy
• Position: Focus

After four years of nesting startup technology businesses--delivering incubator space, new product development, business assistance and capital--Rose-Hulman Ventures has hatched new plans. The goal of the Terre Haute-based nonprofit employing 27 is to boost Indiana's innovation economy.

"The whole concept of an innovation economy in Indiana is beginning to be something that people are excited about and have come to accept as a positive step forward," president James Eifert says as he navigates a new, two-pronged strategy. His goal is to form partnerships around the state to expand RHV's reach and impact, and to recruit new companies to Indiana.

With $24.9 million in 2002 from Lilly Endowment, which followed a 1999 founding grant of $30 million, Eifert has the resources. In exchange for assistance, he'll negotiate flexible return-on-investment options that include corporate equity, enhanced fees for services, royalty share and intellectual-property equity.

The first new thrust, driven by RHV's mandate and need to provide educational opportunities for students at host Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, is an expansion. But it's not the traditional bricks-and-mortar kind.

"We're partnering with other entities around Indiana--incubators, universities, economic-development corporations and venture capitalists," Eifert says. "We'll each have investments in the same companies so Rose-Hulman Ventures will have less to do tot our client companies in terms of breadth of services and can focus on technical services."

A perfect example, he says, is a recent agreement to assist West Lafayette's Griffin Analytical Technologies, a company housed in a Purdue Research Park incubator that licensed Purdue technology to develop a miniaturized mass spectrometer for the analytical-instrumentation market.

"Purdue invested in Griffin, and what we're investing in them is in-kind technical assistance," Eifert says of RHV's $500,000 in support. "We're doing that kind of thing around the state, as well as continuing our operation here as we have been in the past."

His second new area of focus, bringing companies from around the country and world to Indiana, took several staff members to China, this summer. "We'll be recruiting companies, particularly those needing engineering assistance with product design and prototyping--companies that would benefit from the relatively low cost of living in Indiana," Eifert says.

The recruiting idea came after success working with...