The Innovation Space Celebrates Largest Cohort to Date and 100th Company
Learn more about the startups The Innovation Space is helping to accelerate and the services and lab space they offer to the Greater Philly community
By Mark Terry
March 31, 2023
The Innovation Space™, headquartered in Wilmington, Del., recently marked its 100th company when 12 new start-ups joined its Science Inc. Accelerator Program. The Innovation Space supports and “fuels” the growth of science-based startups and companies by offering a range of facilities, programs and funding opportunities. The Spring 2023 Science Inc. cohort was the largest to date and includes companies from 15 states and four countries.
Speaking with BioBuzz, The Innovation Space’s Founder, President and CEO William D. Provine, Ph.D., said, “From the highest level, what we try to create is a home for science entrepreneurs, both a physical and virtual home. We’re helping to support entrepreneurs who are out there to change the world.”
The Innovation Space does that by providing physical laboratory and office space, access to equipment, mentoring and in some cases seed funding. “We really try to help them through the dozens of valleys that an entrepreneur has to go through, especially in their early phases as they’re building a business,” Provine said.
The facility is 130,000 square feet of state-of-the-art lab and office space with access to the newest equipment. It also offers programs and opportunities for entrepreneurship mentoring.
The Science Inc.™ Accelerator describes itself as a “virtual, cohort-based accelerator for early-stage startups in the sciences.” The program lasts four months with companies working with The Innovation Space and Science Inc. to move their businesses forward as quickly as possible.
Provine notes that The Innovation Space is “part of a broader property called the DuPont Experimental Station. “So we have 130,000 square feet of a basically two-million-square-foot campus that supports science-based research and innovation. There are a variety of people both in biotech and in the physical sciences who are bringing those tools forward to create products and new businesses and support change in the world.”
The new cohort of 12 companies includes CaperRX, a therapeutics company working on a first-in-class proprietary peptide therapy to treat glioblastoma, Cellergy Pharma, focusing on severe allergic disease, Chiima Therapeutics, an early-stage company working on acute and chronic pain, Nitro Biosciences, working on immune diseases, and Ren Bioscience, working to develop a retinal disease treatment.
Eligible startup companies also have the chance to apply for up to an additional $200,000 in support through the First Fund™ investment program.
Provine said, “When you look across the United States, in terms of people who know how to build companies in certain sectors, a lot of them are located in our backyard in the greater Philadelphia area. We actually bring in entrepreneurs-in-residence as well as support other companies from across the country.”
The Science Inc.™ Accelerator is one of The Innovation Space’s bigger programs, Provine said, which typically supports 20 companies a year in a cohort of 10 in the spring and another 10 in the fall. This spring’s cohort, however, had 12 companies. Applications for the Fall 2023 Cohort will open in Summer 2023.
The program had a couple of hundred applications. Provine said, “We sort those down to a critical few that we can support with our program. They may not be in our backyard all the time, but the world is a big place and we want to be able to connect people where it adds value.”
Other programs include The First Fund™, which offers early-stage startups with funding, expertise, equipment and laboratories, and Spark Factory™, which offers mentoring support to new founders.
Provine said, “The Science Inc. Accelerator Program allows the companies to work with a team of entrepreneurs on a journey to go from polishing their business plans to approaching investors. Everyone really has their own unique challenges on their early journey. A lot of them are pre-funded companies, some have limited early funding, but all are definitely early in their trajectory. We help get them to that next stage of investment.”
Although many of the companies are located in the mid-Atlantic area, including Philadelphia, Delaware and South New Jersey, The Innovation Space also supports companies across the country and even internationally. On Friday, March 31, 2023, it plans to launch an interactive map on its website that showcase the companies they have supported as part of its 100-company mark. “We have them all listed on our website in our portfolio companies, but we’re also trying to tell those stories a bit more aggressively as we move forward,” Provine said.
The programs support a range of industries, not just biotechnology, therapeutics and healthcare. They include aerospace, agriculture, chemicals and chemical products, diagnostics, clean technology, nanotechnology, renewables/renewable energy and more.
In September 2020, The Innovation Space received $1.5 million from the U.S. Department of Commerce and the Economic Development Administration to create a Hard Science Startup Accelerator. It was awarded via the national Build to Scale (B2S) competition. And in February 2023, The Innovation Space received $2.475 million in federal funding to upgrade and expand its scientific facilities.
“We’re in the process of executing that project and bringing it to life,” Provine said. “And we’re continuing to grow our investment fund ourselves, so we can keep helping startups. One of the critical values is what some people call seed or pre-seed funding, really kind of that first money that goes into the company.”
When asked what The Innovation Space looks for in startup companies, Provine said, “Are these companies scalable? And we’re looking for impact. Is the company more than a one-trick pony with a limited product? Is this something that can really impact thousands, if not millions of lives?”
Check out this newly-launched map to learn more about how Innovation Space is fueling life sciences ecosystems across the nation and even overseas.
- About the Author
- Latest Posts
Mark Terry is a freelance writer, editor, novelist and ghostwriter. He holds a degree in microbiology & public health and spent 18 years in infectious disease research and clinical and research genetics prior to his transition to a writing career. His areas of expertise include biotechnology, pharma, clinical diagnostics, and medical practice management. He has written literally thousands of articles, as well as market research reports, white papers, more than 20 books, and many other written materials. He currently lives in Michigan with his family.
