Color-Variation-Orange-Block-I-Blue-Background-1

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

Research Park

    EnterpriseWorks

    EnterpriseWorks News Recognition & Awards

    EnterpriseWorks Awarded University Center Grant For Downstate Illinois Entrepreneurial Development

    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEFebruary 1, 2017Contact:Laura Weisskopf Bleill, lwbleill@illinois.edu; 217-244-7744 EnterpriseWorks Awarded University Center Grant For Downstate Illinois Entrepreneurial Development Will Provide Direct Technical and Business Assistance For Entrepreneurs South of I-80 CHAMPAIGN,  Ill., February 1, 2017 – The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s EnterpriseWorks incubator has been awarded a University Center Grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration’s (EDA) to provide direct assistance to downstate Illinois entrepreneurs. The EDA University Center Grant awards EnterpriseWorks $54,000 annually over five years for a total of $270,000. This is the second five-year University Center Grant EnterpriseWorks has been awarded by the EDA. EnterpriseWorks and the University of Illinois Urbana- Champaign are a part of a peer network of centers across the United States focused on utilizing the skills and talents from universities to provide business assistance to further grow the economy. The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign was one of 24 colleges and universities recently awarded funding from the EDA University Center program, which also includes the University of Illinois at Chicago. The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign will utilize the grant funding to provide direct technical assistance to entrepreneurs and small businesses referred by partnering incubators, SBDC programs, PTAC offices, ITCs, University of Illinois Extension offices, or higher education entrepreneurial programs.  Eligible participants will be located in Illinois communities south of Interstate 80. As part of the University Center program, technical and business assistance will be provided by teams of University of Illinois students who will engage in market research, competitive assessment, design, and technical consultation, among other activities.  This provides University of Illinois students with experiential learning opportunities to apply knowledge they have acquired in the classroom. Preliminary work has begun on the project with efforts ramping up over the next several months. The University of Illinois has hired an experienced entrepreneur to lead the center along with the EnterpriseWorks team. Interested participants in the program may contact Marissa Siero at siebel2@illinois.edu. In addition to the EDA University Center Grant, EnterpriseWorks has also been awarded an EDA Economic Adjustment Assistance grant to help university-based incubators and enterpreneurship in 10 Illinois counties. Read the News-Gazette’s coverage here.

    EnterpriseWorks Awarded University Center Grant For Downstate Illinois Entrepreneurial Development Read Post »

    EnterpriseWorks Media Mentions News

    Agrible and Granular Acknowledged on THRIVE 50

    Agrible and Granular were recently recognized on THRIVE 50, an annual list created by SVG Partners that ranks the best AgTech companies in the United States. Agrible is a homegrown organization that first started at the EnterpriseWorks incubator. They focus on providing farmers with the tools and science to improve production with cloud-based delivery systems. The company has since moved to a different building, but are still located at Research Park. Agrible received praise in the “Big Data and Analytics” category of the THRIVE 50 list. Granular is a San Francisco based company that opened a second office at Research Park. The organization specializes in agriculture software and analytics to better manage business decisions on large farms. Granular was commended in the “Cloud Services/SAAS” catagory. Both companies will be recognized on February 1st at the THRIVE Innovation Forum. Read the full article here.

    Agrible and Granular Acknowledged on THRIVE 50 Read Post »

    EnterpriseWorks News

    EnterpriseWorks Startup Cast 21 Closes Funding Round

    Cast 21, an EnterpriseWorks startup that makes waterproof, breathable casts, has closed a funding round of $800,000. IllinoisVENTURES is among the list of investors, who also include Memphis Biomed Venture Partners, Innova Memphis, Bindley Capital Partners, and an undisclosed number of angel investors reported Chicago Inno. Cast 21 was founded by three former University of Illinois students, who have been avid consumers of resources across the University of Illinois entrepreneurial ecosystem including the Cozad New Venture Competition, the iVenture Accelerator, and AWARE. They moved into the EnterpriseWorks incubator in August. Congrats to Ashley, Jason and Justin!

    EnterpriseWorks Startup Cast 21 Closes Funding Round Read Post »

    EnterpriseWorks Media Mentions News

    Engadget Names Amber Agriculture Top CES Startup

    Amber Agriculture, a University of Illinois student startup with ties to EnterpriseWorks, has been named the top startup of the 2017 Consumer Electronic Show (CES). Amber Agriculture’s agtech product helps farmers manage their stored product, and is part of the connected farm movement. “Plenty of startups promise solutions to problems that are either overblown or don’t really exist, but we can’t say the same about Amber Agriculture. With Amber’s array of sensors, farmers can more easily check the quality of their stored grain and get their wares to the companies that make our food at the right time. Beyond ensuring these farmers get the biggest return on their crop yields, the ability to monitor for the conditions that lead to spoilage could eventually help whole countries deal with food supply issues. Long story short: Amber’s is a savvy approach to a pressing problem most people don’t even know about,” wrote Endgadget editor Chris Velazco. Engadget wrote a longer piece on Amber Agriculture: “What’s more, Amber’s approach falls in line with other big trends at the show. You’ve heard of the smart home. Now the Amber team is trying to help build the smart farm. Amber Agriculture won the 2016 Cozad New Venture Competition at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and subsequently participated in the iVenture Accelerator student program over the summer, housed at Research Park. After a short stint at EnteprieseWorks, the team spent the past semester at Hax Accelerator in China. They have received grant money from EnterpriseWorks and plan to resume tenancy there in 2017. Interested in learning more about Amber Agriculture? Visit the link to hear more from co-founder, Lucas Frye.

    Engadget Names Amber Agriculture Top CES Startup Read Post »

    EnterpriseWorks Media Mentions News

    Ocient Named One of 17 Chicago Startups to Watch

    ChicagoInno put together a list of the Top 17 Chicago Startups to watch in 2017 based on the companies’ growth in 2016 and potential for 2017. Ocient, an EnterpriseWorks affiliate member, was featured as number 3 on the list. Ocient develops supercomputer scale data platforms for high velocity analytics and machine learning on the world’s largest data sets. Read the ChicagoInno article here.

    Ocient Named One of 17 Chicago Startups to Watch Read Post »

    EnterpriseWorks News Partnerships & Acquisitions

    EnterpriseWorks Graduate Acquired by Scotts Miracle-Gro

    CHAMPAIGN — Scotts Miracle-Gro has announced that they have acquired PlantLink, a former student startup and EnterpriseWorks graduate. PlantLink was developed by Oso Technologies when it began as a student startup company in Research Park in 2011. The PlantLink product was designed to make gardening easier by using sensors embedded in the plants’ soil to notify users via computer or smartphone when a plant’s water level and moisture are low. The inspiration for their first product began after the CEO Eduardo Torrealba’s wife struggled to keep a basil plant alive, and PlantLink is now helping acres of plants grow. Since 2011, Oso Technologies has received seed funding from IllinoisVENTURES, raised $100,000 in their Kickstarter campaign, and was awarded the 2013 Innovation Celebration Student Startup Award. In late 2013, Oso Technologies graduated from the EnterpriseWorks incubator. They have also developed a smart valve add-on to water a user’s outdoor plants or lawn automatically when water levels are low and partnered with Miracle Gro in 2016 to develop the Gro application. Scotts plans to put more resources toward PlantLink and wants to make the products available in retail stores where other Scotts products are sold. Read more about Scotts and PlantLink in Landscape Management.

    EnterpriseWorks Graduate Acquired by Scotts Miracle-Gro Read Post »

    EnterpriseWorks News

    Personify Founder: “EnterpriseWorks A Great Environment to Grow Up In”

    CHAMPAIGN— The News-Gazette’s Paul Wood interviewed Sanjay Patel for his Wired In column this week. Sanjay Patel is the CEO and co-founder of Personify and an electrical and computer engineering professor at the University of Illinois. Personify creates technology and products for video communication, and virtual and augmented reality. The company spent two years in the EnterpriseWorks incubator and is now located in Urbana. Read more about Sanjay Patel and Personify in the News-Gazette.

    Personify Founder: “EnterpriseWorks A Great Environment to Grow Up In” Read Post »

    EnterpriseWorks News Recognition & Awards

    Veriflow Wins Open Innovation Challenge Award

    CHAMPAIGN — Veriflow Systems was selected as the Barclays “Innovation Challenge Winner,” beating out over 100 competing companies. This event is held to assess the latest technologies that are likely to drastically impact the banking scene in the future. Veriflow, a Research Park startup planted in EnterpriseWorks, is the first networking company to use continuous network verification to eliminate network outages and vulnerabilities. Read more about the challenge and Veriflow Systems here.

    Veriflow Wins Open Innovation Challenge Award Read Post »

    EnterpriseWorks News

    Reconstruct, EnterpriseWorks Startup, Announces Seed Round Funding

    Reconstruct, a computer vision based analytics company for the construction industry based in the EnterpriseWorks incubator, has received $850,000 of seed round funding. The raise was led by Serra Ventures, which is also based in the University of Illinois Research Park, with Illinois Ventures joining as part of the syndicate. Reconstruct was founded by Mani Golparvar-Fard, an assistant professor of Civil Engineering and affiliate Assistant Professor of Computer Science at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). The company has been an enthusiastic participant in and consumer of entreprenuerial resources at the University of Illinois, including the I-Start program at EnterpriseWorks; I-Corps; and the Cozad New Venture Competition. ““Almost every large construction project experiences cost and time overruns.  Images captured by drones and other devices have the potential to improve efficiency, which translates directly to the bottom line.  Reconstruct is the only platform we have found that can turn those images together with BIM into actionable information about both actual and potential delays,” Serra Ventures Managing Partner Rob Schultz said in a press release.  Interested in learning more from CTO, Derek Hoiem? Visit the link.   

    Reconstruct, EnterpriseWorks Startup, Announces Seed Round Funding Read Post »

    EnterpriseWorks News

    Veriflow Systems Raises $8.2 Million

    CHAMPAIGN – Veriflow Systems, an EnterpriseWorks tenant, has announced that they have raised $8.2 million in Series A funding. The fundraising effort was led by Menlo Ventures, and follows the nearly $3 million effort in April. Veriflow Systems develops an online network security software. They use verification technology to help protect networks against hackers and outages. Veriflow plans on using the funds to hire more engineers, work on its sales force, and boost their marketing across the industry. To learn more about this big invest read up on Yahoo! Finance.

    Veriflow Systems Raises $8.2 Million Read Post »