About CONNECTCONNECT is a regional program that catalyzes the creation of innovative technology and life sciences products in San Diego County by linking inventors and entrepreneurs with the resources they need for success. Since 1985, CONNECT has assisted in the formation and development of more than 3,000 companies. The leadership of CONNECT attributes its success to the unique culture of collaboration between industry, capital sources, professional service providers and research organizations that CONNECT has sought to foster in the region. CONNECT was originally founded as a part of the University of California (UC) San Diego in the mid-80s. At that time traditional industries in the region were on the decline, the attraction of companies to the San Diego region was very difficult and region leaders were searching for a path to economic renewal and sustained growth. Meanwhile, innovative high tech and life sciences companies such as IMED, IVAC, Linkabit, SAIC, Qualcomm and Hybritech were quietly developing in the San Diego region, fueled in part by technology and scientists at research institutions on the Torrey Pines Mesa. UC San Diego, the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation and private sector business leaders recognized in this an opportunity for CONNECT to transform San Diego’s growing research capabilities into commercially viable products and businesses that would ultimately increase the prosperity of the region. By leveraging the various assets within the region, CONNECT focuses its efforts on accelerating the commercialization of new technology and life sciences products. While that mission has stayed relatively true since its initial creation, the organization and its program offerings have continued to evolve in response to the changes in the region’s economic climate. At the time that CONNECT was being founded, UC San Diego was just beginning to mature as a research institution, and there were a small number of other research institutions in the region. Over the years as San Diego’s technology and life sciences clusters have matured, UC San Diego has continued to grow, and in tandem, so has the entire research base of the region. Today, San Diego has more than 80 research institutions; about two thirds are part of the UC San Diego system, and the rest include private research organizations and a number of other academic-based research institutions. In 2005, to better serve the entire research community, CONNECT spun-out of UC San Diego and formed the CONNECT Association, a 501c6 trade organization and CONNECT Foundation, a 501c3 charitable foundation. As a result of spinning-out from UC San Diego, CONNECT has been able to broaden its mandate to include public advocacy work on behalf of its members through the trade organization. Today, CONNECT is focused on delivering the fundamental programs that the innovation community depends upon. At the same time the organization is creating new services to meet the needs of the evolving economic and policy landscape and the new clusters that are developing within the region. Challenges include attracting investment capital and engineering and experienced management talent. The organization views its “sweet-spot” as the “beginning of the food chain” – the point when the market potential of an innovation is being assessed and then commercialized. Toward this end, CONNECT works with innovators in research institutions, early stage and growth companies and major corporations. Whether a company is looking to spin out or license an innovation, launch a second or third product into a new market or evaluate the commercial potential of a discovery CONNECT has experienced entrepreneurs-in-residence who can assess the innovation and coach the innovators through the process. Throughout the last quarter of a century CONNECT has assisted clusters in developing their own trade organizations as they become large enough and deep enough to sustain a stand-alone organization focused on the cluster’s specific technical needs. Organizations that CONNECT has assisted in fostering over the years include BIOCOM, CommNexus San Diego, CleanTECH San Diego and Wireless Life Sciences Alliance. CONNECT either creates or participates in the creation of a cluster trade organization as the cluster evolves and grows within the region. It is currently partnering in the creation of a biomimicry proof of concept center that will lead to the development of biomimicry clusters across the US. In addition it is incubating an action and sports organization led by NBA legend Bill Walton called SD Sport Innovators to focus on the advanced technologies found within the sporting industry such as high performance materials and designs, clean technology and wireless and remote monitoring. Continual development of new strategies by the board of directors and staff leadership team to meet the evolving needs of the innovation economy keeps CONNECT relevant to its members. It has enabled the organization to deliver measurable results to the companies served, even in the midst of the recent recession. In addition, the organization recognizes that each member company or organization is unique. Therefore, the staff works to tailor its programming and individual assistance in order to ensure these specific needs are being met. This approach has led to a stable base of membership that grows consistently each year. CONNECT’s annual budget is approximately $3 million. About half of the organization’s revenue is primarily generated from membership dues paid by industry, professional service providers, research institutions and venture capital firms. Members provide additional sponsorship revenue for individual programs. This base of revenue enables CONNECT to provide mentoring and educational programming either free or at a very low cost for researchers and early and growth stage companies. The revenue from ticket and table sales, along with a small number of grants mainly from private foundations makes up the balance of CONNECT’s budget. As a result of its efforts, CONNECT has assisted more than 3,000 companies in attracting more than $10 billion in investment capital. CONNECT is widely regarded as one of the world's most successful organizations linking inventors and entrepreneurs with the resources they need for commercialization of innovative products.The program has been modeled in more than 50 regions around the world – most recently in New York City, Bogotá, Colombia and Saudi Arabia. CONNECT has recently been recognized by Inc., Time and Entrepreneur magazines and received the 2010 Innovation in Economic Development Award from the U.S. Department of Commerce for creation of Regional Innovation Clusters. CONNECT also manages the San Diego Innovation Hub (iHub) designated by the state of California Governor’s Office of Economic Development in 2010. VDO Programs and ServicesCONNECT offers a wide variety of program and services to meet a variety of needs across the entire innovation acceleration continuum. Offerings fall into six broad categories:
A summary of CONNECT’s programs and services are provided below. Business Advisory ServicesSpringboard: Springboard, CONNECT's flagship program, is a business creation and development service that assists technology-based companies and entrepreneurs in refining their business and financial strategies through a group mentoring process. Innovators receive hands-on mentoring by a team of roughly 500 successful CEOs, CFOs and CMOs who volunteer their services through CONNECT’s Entrepreneurs-in-Residence (EIR) and Domain Expert Programs. Springboard provides assistance to companies across multiple stages of the innovation continuum, including:
Once a company is accepted into Springboard, they are paired up with two or three of the volunteer EIRs. This group provides expert advice on a host of topics, including business models, marketing plans, financial model and projections, intellectual property, valuation, due diligence and financing. In addition, the volunteers provide industry feedback as well as introductions to potential clients and strategic alliances. The EIRs work with the company anywhere from two weeks to six months to help the company finesse its business plan, financial projections, marketing plan, financial pitch and any other form of assistance that the EIR feels is necessary. The EIRs bring domain experts to the table to provide more specialized assistance. Once the company is coached through its financial presentation, the company presents to a group of industry experts, service providers, venture capitalists and angels who all provide feedback on the presentation, and decide whether or not to either make an investment or introduce the company to others within their network. After this presentation, the company graduates from the program. At any given time, approximately 200 companies are receiving assistance through Springboard, with about 50 companies graduating annually. Since its inception, the program has assisted over 1,000 companies in starting and funding their operations. Over 300 companies have graduated from the program and raised more than $700 million in funding. Convergence ClustersCONNECT supports, develops and accelerates the formation and growth of a variety of technology clusters. CONNECT believes that clusters need open forums in which to transfer knowledge, create bridges to access capital and advocate on their behalf. Through these platforms, we attempt to fill these roles and help emerging clusters grow until which time the cluster is large enough and strong enough to support a stand-alone trade organization. In helping to foster the growth of a cluster, CONNECT is very mindful of conducting its own due diligence to determine what the real issues are for the companies involved in the cluster, and then tailoring the services it creates to try to meet those needs through value-added programming. Those needs vary significantly from cluster to cluster. Investment Capital CONNECT works to help companies in the region gain access to risk capital via a range of avenues: Venture Roundtable: To help venture ready companies more easily connect to active investors, CONNECT hosts four Venture Roundtables each year in the following areas: Life Sciences, Clean Technology, Digital and Convergence. Industry experts judge the nominations and choose five investment-ready San Diego innovation companies to present to a group of venture capitalists that are invited from across the country to participate in person or via web conference. Annually the winning companies present in conjunction with the San Diego Venture Group’s Venture Summit and the CONNECT/Xconomy Research and Innovation Summit. Deal Network: Deal Network is a confidential database of individual high net worth investors who are not part of an official angel group, but interested in investing in early stage deals. These individuals receive periodic notice of scrubbed high-quality deals that are investment-ready. Deal Network events are held in private residences and include short presentations and networking between presenting companies and potential investors. Presenting companies are Springboard graduates, as well as Venture Roundtable and Most Innovative New Product Award winners. The eight law firms that underwrite the Springboard Program provide due diligence to ensure that the presenting companies are investment-ready. The events are attended by no more 25 high net worth investors to ensure quality one-on-one networking opportunities. This database was originally built from the personal connections made by CONNECT leadership. Today the pool is expanding through word of mouth and referrals. CONNECT/Calit2 Grants Portal: CONNECT worked with the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) at UC San Diego to create a grants portal that innovators can access to gather information regarding all federal grants available in their area of focus. The impetus for the program came about during the recent recession when CONNECT research demonstrated that almost 80 percent of the capital coming into the region was from federal grants. This was a result of venture capital funding declining dramatically and the federal government’s increase in grant funding. The Grants Portal allows a company to set up an individual profile, and then in real time the system feeds the individual potential grant opportunities. CONNECT is planning on enhancing the program by providing additional staff support to assist companies with navigation and identifying key words. Tech Coast Angels: CONNECT has had a long term relationship with the San Diego Tech Coast Angels (TCA). The angel group operates out of CONNECT’s offices, and CONNECT also provides the angels with program management staffing for a fee. Across Southern California Tech Coast Angels has five chapters and a network of more than 300 members. In 2010, Tech Coast Angels funded 31 companies, invested $6.3 million and raised another $33 million in follow-on rounds and examined over 500 new ventures. San Diego companies that attract the interest of the San Diego TCA network are then able to present to all five chapters. Educational/Public Policy ProgrammingCONNECT provides a number of educational, public policy, recognition and competition events. These include the following: Entrepreneurs for Young Innovators: This program brings life sciences and high tech entrepreneurs into the classrooms of local middle and high schools with the goal of encouraging students to pursue careers in the sciences. CEO Strategy Forum: The intent of the forum is to have successful CEOs share challenges, confidential business strategies and management techniques to overcome obstacles and accelerate growth. Members are typically CEOs who have raised initial funding, acquired customers and built a core team or VCs focused on growth stage companies. Connect-Assist: CONNECT supports research institutions in the attraction and retention of talent. FrameWorks Workshops: Half-day workshop series on business basics and other timely topics. The target audience is early stage innovators as well as engineers and scientists within larger organizations seeking to broaden their intrapreneurial skill sets. Frontiers in Science and Technology: Lecture series that showcases groundbreaking research efforts in the San Diego region. The lecture series brings together the business community with leading scientists, engineers and research-focused physicians from San Diego’s numerous research institutes and medical facilities. Financial Forums/Timely Topics: An educational series that explores new models for accessing investment capital, as well as business topics such as changing accounting rules and trends in leasing of space. CONNECT/Xconomy Research & Innovation Summit: Leading venture capitalists and scientists provide a vision of the future to invitation-only, out-of-region VCs and institutional investors. The forum previews groundbreaking research that may lead to revolutionary product breakthroughs in five to 10 years along with quick pitches by the 20 Venture Roundtable winners from the year. Innovation 101 and Policy Forums: CONNECT takes an active role on behalf of its members in public policy. CONNECT identifies legislative issues that it believes will impact the region, and then acts as advocates by bringing together experts in DC and in San Diego in educational forums and by building coalitions to voice the needs and concerns of the innovators. In 2010-2011 CONNECT was engaged in a range of policy issues including:
In 2010, the CONNECT Board of Directors approved the establishment of a think tank (the CONNECT Innovation Institute) to develop and publish white papers on innovation policy and competiveness in the global economy. The CONNECT Innovation Institute focuses its research on innovation economy issues and publishes papers regarding federal policy issues. CONNECT also publishes an Innovation Report, which is the first comprehensive quarterly report in the country to provide an economic indicator of the strength and impact of the innovation economy. The report tracks the number of new innovation start-ups in key regions across California, tech sector wages and employment, VC investment, merger and acquisition activity, private placement investment, IPOs, patent activity, federal research grants and research employment and wages. Recognition & CompetitionCONNECT feels strongly that recognizing innovators and entreprenuers is an essential part of fostering the innovation economy. Entrepreneur Hall of Fame: Recognizes community leaders who have achieved distinction in founding, leading or building a San Diego life sciences or technology based business organization, and have contributed to the region individually and through their organizations to build and shape the local economy and significantly improve the region’s quality of life. Most Innovative New Product Awards: Attracts more than 800 business leaders, researchers and capital providers who are interested in exploring the most innovative companies in the region. More than 100 companies compete for eight awards in the categories of action and sport technologies, aerospace and security technologies, clean technology, communications and IT, hardware and general technology, life science-diagnostics and research tools, life science-medical products and software. Connect with CONNECT: The organization’s networking events held throughout the year in a relaxed setting featuring exhibits of cutting-edge new technologies. CONNECT seeks to provide an environment in which the region’s business leaders can create new partnerships and expand their networks. Moving the NeedleCONNECT has launched a Nearsourcing Marketplace to educate our region’s entrepreneurs and emerging businesses on the benefits of outsourcing, and in particular outsourcing locally, including reduced time to market, increased innovation and decreased capital requirements. The program includes three components: (1) Regularly-scheduled educational workshops and conferences that teach innovators about how to outsource and the benefits of nearsourcing, (2) An interactive, searchable database that contains 5,000 San Diego outsourcing companies and (3) Nearsourcing Roundtables that assist innovators in sourcing and contracting with the right outsourcing partner. CONNECT is planning the 8th Global CONNECT Summit from December 7 to 9 in 2011 with the theme “Proven Strategies to Catalyze the Growth of Regional Innovation Clusters and Create Jobs.” The program is designed to bring together business leaders from regional innovation clusters, tech transfer and government to explore the latest strategies, inspire new approaches and leverage the latest thought leadership. Leading regional innovation cluster organizations, accelerators, incubators, economic development councils, government policymakers, tech transfer officers, corporate leaders and venture capitalists will engage in a dialogue and share successful projects and activities that are catalyzing the commercialization of products in life sciences and technology and creating sustainable economic growth. The role of government advocacy in stimulating a healthy innovation economy and alternative models for funding innovation will also be explored. OrganizationCONNECT’s senior leadership were formerly CEOs and business owners from the regional technology community, and bring their knowledge of the needs of start-up businesses to their roles with CONNECT. CONNECT’s staff of 20 employees have extensive event planning and marketing experience that is necessary to successfully organize the more than 350 events that CONNECT offers each year. CONNECT has two Boards of Directors. For its 501c6 organization, there are almost 80 Board Members, with 22 serving on its Executive Committee. The 501c3 Foundation has 14 members on its Board. CONNECT has intentionally built boards that represent a broad constituency so that it can rally civic leadership quickly when there is a pressing need, opportunity or initiative that requires action. CONNECT works to keep a good representation of all the constituents of San Diego’s innovation economy on the Board at all times, including venture capitalists, scientists, the research institutions, entrepreneurs, CEOs and service providers. Representation on the boards means civic leaders are already informed and ready to move very quickly to fundraise, lobby and respond to the initiative. Finally, CONNECT’s unique strength is found within the organization’s 1,800 volunteers. CONNECT staff handle the hands-on logistics of the programs and reach out to volunteers to speak, judge, screen, develop program content and mentor. Engagement provides volunteers with an expanded network, leadership opportunities and an opportunity to give back to the community.
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