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UK has a hands-on role B y K acie P. M i l ler and L inda Per r y

President Matt Bellis (left) and Daniel Lau, chief technology officer and UK associate professor of elec-trical engineering, lead Seikowave Inc. in Lexington. The Von Allmen Center for Entrepreneurshiphelped them target investment funding in Kentucky for their company. The company is located in theUK ASTeCC campus incubator.

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Schmidt’s goal was to help his fraternity,Alpha Phi Omega, a co-educational na-tional service fraternity, organize adminis-trative duties through such items as onlineevent calendars, blogs, and membershiprosters. is application also allows organi-zations to manage and track students’ com-munity service hours throughout thesemester. is community-based online or-ganization management service is nowhelping other chapters around the nation.Schmidt has also started greektrack.comand manageyour.org, which use similar applications.

“e Lexington ICC played a key rolein introducing me and my business to thewonderful entrepreneurial communitythat Lexington, Kentucky holds. e Lex-ington ICC not only hosts, but also spon-sors several entrepreneurial events around

the Lexington area that continue to fuelmy passion for entrepreneurship,” saysSchmidt. “I’m very grateful that I had theopportunity to start a company here inLexington and had the consistent supportfrom the Lexington ICC and the [entre-preneurial] community it helped create.”

Office for Commercialization

and Economic Development

To grow Kentucky’s economy, UKCED commercializes UK faculty, staff

and student research and clinician inno-vations, forms R&D and industry part-nerships, works with local, state andfederal economic development agencies,and develops new and existing busi-nesses. Simply put, the UK office helpscreate new spinout companies and newjobs in the Commonwealth, and has hadan impact on new business growth:

• 1st in creating startup companiesamong UK benchmark institutions

• 351 total active patents in drug devel-opment and design, plant biotech,equine health, and materials for med-ical implants, drug delivery systemsand medical devices

• 169 total licenses • $2.2 million in gross licensing rev-

enue in 2010

“We are the university’s agent for deliv-ering innovative technologies to compa-nies that will be developed into newproducts for the marketplace,” said LenHeller, vice president for UK CED. “Ourgoal is to facilitate the growth of UK’s in-tellectual assets and provide opportunitiesfor startup companies and existing busi-nesses to grow and be successful.”

As the university’s nexus for commer-cializing UK technology and creatingspinoff companies and jobs, UK CED

manages UK’s patent and technologyportfolio, and includes the Advanced Sci-ence & Technology CommercializationCenter (ASTeCC) campus incubator,Technology Transfer, Coldstream Re-search Campus, Kentucky Small BusinessDevelopment Center, Kentucky Technol-ogy Inc., Lexington Innovation & Com-mercialization Center and the VonAllmen Center for Entrepreneurship.

e Von Allmen Center for Entrepre-neurship including the downtown office,the Lexington ICC, serves the UK com-munity and Bluegrass entrepreneurs byhelping develop and support startup com-panies with services such market research,commercialization assessment, and assis-tance with business plans and marketingstrategies. e Von Allmen Center alsoconnects entrepreneurs to the Bluegrass

Angels and Bluegrass Angel Venture Funds,the Lexington Venture Club, and the Ken-tucky High-Tech Funding Program.

e Kentucky Small Business Develop-ment Center has 15 service centersstatewide and provides consulting andtraining services to help business ownersand entrepreneurs succeed. Some of itsservices include one-on-one managementconsultations, training workshops andloan packaging assistance. In 2010, theKSBDC helped start 196 businesses, cre-

hough the general economy may have its woes, UK alumni, faculty, cliniciansand staff are doing something about it. For example, Tony Schmidt, a 2010College of Engineering grad, started his own company, APOonline, as a student. He received valuable guidance from the Lexington Innovation &Commercialization Center (Lexington ICC), part of the UK Office for Commercialization and Economic Development (UK CED) that is dedicatedto helping entrepreneurs and their startup companies succeed.T

“Entrepreneurship is not all fun and games — it takes financial people, legal

people, etc. — and the Lexington ICC helps you connect with those you need

to take your business to the next level.” — Tony Schmidt, APOonline

www.ukalumni.net 19

ate or retain 817 jobs, and assist 124 dis-tressed businesses around the state.

Coldstream Research Campus is situ-ated on 735 acres owned by the Universityof Kentucky. e campus is home to 62companies, many are UK startups in theareas of pharmacy, biotech, agriculture,equine research, engineering and sustain-able energy. Recently, Tempur-Pedic held agroundbreaking for its international head-quarters to open in December 2012.

Starting a spinoff company

ere’s no doubt that entrepreneurshipis one of the most important ingredientsin having a thriving community and a sus-tainable economy. And it’s fair to say thatno two companies get their start in thesame way. UK is providing the resourcesnecessary to help new companies, whetherthey are offshoots of research started atUK by students or faculty, companiesstarted by UK alums, or Kentucky compa-nies looking for expertise to take theirideas to the next level.

Daniel Lau, co-founder of Seikowave Inc.in Lexington, is an associate professor in theCollege of Engineering whose research in-terests include 3-D imaging sensors, 3-Dfingerprint identification, and multispectral

color acquisition and display. His companycreated a 3-D imaging platform that is de-signed to make imaging faster, cheaper andmore accessible for medical and industrialneeds by using optics similar to those foundin digital cameras.

Seikowave co-founder and PresidentMatt Bellis, says that the Von AllmenCenter for Entrepreneurship helped totarget investment funding. “Althoughwe received investment from a varietyof funds located in the United Statesand Japan, the Von Allmen Center re-ally helped us get connected to sourcesof funding in the state of Kentucky.These sources of funding were criticalto getting the company up-and-run-ning,” he says. “The Von Allmen Cen-ter also helped us secure office space —we are located in the ASTeCC build-ing. We also have three UK engineerson staff and the Von Allmen Centerhelped us identify at least one of theseengineers.”

Sometimes what UK and Kentucky haveto offer becomes very attractive to those inother states. A prime example of this is Or-thopeutics L.P./Intralink Spine Inc., abiotechnology company that relocatedfrom Texas to the UK Coldstream Re-

search Campus. e company is workingon an injectable tissue revitalization reagentfor the treatment of degenerative disc dis-ease and lower back pain. ree employeesmoved to Lexington in fall 2010, and thecompany plans to add more high-tech posi-tions as it begins to manufacture the device.According to Orthopeutics/Intralink SpineCEO and President Eric Hauck, Ken-tucky’s matching funds program for SBIRsand STTRs was the initial impetus to relo-cate from Texas to Kentucky.

Tom Hedman, chief scientific officerand founder for Orthopeutics/IntralinkSpine, holds a joint UK faculty appoint-ment in engineering and medicine. Hesays he was convinced to move his com-pany to Kentucky because of UK’s clearinterest to collaborate in the research anddevelopment of his technology. To thatend, the Bluegrass Business DevelopmentPartnership, an economic developmentinitiative between Lexington city govern-ment, Commerce Lexington and UKCED, had a hand in helping Orthopeu-tics/Intralink Spine select a Lexington lo-cation and evaluate funding sources.

Proof positive that collaborations likethese work, continue to supply the well ofinnovation, and have potential for devel-oping new jobs? Since arriving in Ken-tucky, Orthopeutics-Intralink Spine hasstarted Equinext LLC, a new biotech spin-off company. Equinext is partnering withLexington-based Hagyard Equine Med-ical Institute to produce a chemicallymade injectable reagent device for theequine market that will treat tendon andligament injuries and Wobbler’s Syndromein horses and other animals. Clinical trialsare expected to begin in the next year.

For more information on UK CED,visit www.econdev.uky.edu. �

Tony Schmidt, left, was recognized this year by Lexington Mayor Jim Gray and the Lexington Venture Club for his entrepreneurial pursuits with APOonline.Schmidt credits the Lexington ICC, part of UK CED, with fueling his continued interestin entrepreneurship.

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