The creation of a new fund with a goal of accelerating and expanding technology venture development in Arkansas was announced Thursday by VIC Technology Venture Development.
Calvin Goforth, the CEO and founder of VIC Technology Venture Development, said VIC will start the VIC Investor Network.
The network will place $250,000 start-up capital into every new portfolio company that VIC forms. Start-up capital is the most difficult funding to acquire. The VIC Investor Network funding will allow VIC to jumpstart its new portfolio companies and significantly shorten the average company development time.
Goforth made the announcement at VIC’s offices in the Arkansas Research and Technology Park, a facility managed in Fayetteville by the University of Arkansas Technology Development Foundation.
Mitch Horowitz, vice president and managing director of Battelle Technology Partnership Practice of Cleveland who led an in-depth study called Arkansas’ Knowledge Economy Initiatives, spoke at Thursday’s announcement about the importance of technology-based economic development for Arkansas’ future economy, the benefits of the state’s incentive programs for encouraging such development.
“VIC fills key challenges and gaps for technology-based economic development efforts by bringing together the initial management, product development, business development and administrative teams needed to launch successful companies based on university inventions,” Horowitz said.
With the VIC Investor Network in place, VIC plans to add four new companies to its portfolio each year, nearly tripling VIC’s expansion rate.
VIC estimates that more than 100 high-paying jobs of the future will be created in VIC portfolio companies in the next three years.
VIC will also be adding additional sites across the country as it has developed and proven a uniquely effective business model for translating university research into outstanding young technology companies.
For the past nine years, VIC has been quietly building cutting-edge, world-class technology companies in fields ranging from nanotechnology and cancer diagnostics to pharmaceuticals and semiconductors in Northwest Arkansas. VIC has developed a unique business model for forming and developing companies based on licensed early stage technologies from top research universities across the country.
