A few years ago, Alex Schneider posed a radical idea to the City of Ventura. And it wasn’t just about how good the surf was in the beach town located on the 101 Freeway between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. He rallied support to use part of the city’s $5 million economic development fund to create an incubator for early stage high-tech companies. The goal was to complement local efforts to attract high value firms and jobs to a community not known as a tech hub. “In Ventura there’s kind of this knee jerk reaction that if you’re a technology company you go to places like Santa Barbara and Westlake Village,” said Schneider. The city and local chamber of commerce liked the idea. As part of a larger investment strategy, the City allocated $400,000 to launch the Ventura Ventures Technology Center. A little more than a year after the incubator opened, a dozen companies have moved in; it has attracted entrepreneurs with a track record of spinning out multi-million dollar firms; and the center is getting ready to expand. What does this have to do with the San Fernando Valley? There are no centrally located tech incubators in the Valley and the Ventura center is targeting early stage companies that might otherwise open shop in cities like Westlake Village. “Our market area is a 35-mile radius around Ventura,” said Schneider, executive director of the incubator, adding the number of fast growing high tech firms in the Valley and nearby Santa Barbara has significantly increased over the years. Connected to city hall The incubator consists of more than 10,000 square-feet of space in a building connected to Ventura City Hall. It has office space with 76 workstations spread out among private office suites and open flex space. Flex space is suited for seed stage companies, with one to three employees, interested in networking with other high-tech companies. Private office suites are available for businesses with four to 12 employees. Tenants pay $200-$300 per month for each work station, depending on the size of the company. Amenities include: high speed Internet; reception area; three conference rooms; break room with kitchen, cable TV and video games; foosball table; free off-street parking; janitorial services; and utilities. Jeff Green, founder of a media buying company called The Trade Desk, said it was a no-brainer to open shop at the incubator. He is also co-founder and former COO of AdECN, an online advertising exchange company that Microsoft purchased a couple years ago. “There’s no reason we can’t go and pay higher rent somewhere else, and there are potential benefits to doing that,” said Green, who lives in the Ventura area. “But the city has made it hard to say ‘No.’” Green helped grow Carpinteria-based AdECN to 50 employees. He left the company in 2009 and founded The Trade Desk. He said the new venture is well-funded and growing rapidly. It now has six employees and he plans to hire more. “What it has done for us is we’ve been able to open a company locally,” said Green, who at one point in his career commuted from Santa Clarita to Santa Monica. “It’s great for Ventura because the company is providing jobs, and employees spend locally.” But what about the Valley as an appealing place for a tech incubator? Green said luring companies is all about location, and there are a lot of places where a tech incubator would not work. But Woodland Hills, with its close proximity to tech hubs like Pasadena and Santa Monica and high quality of life, would be one of the best places. Valley-area incubator projects include: College of the Canyons’ i3 Advanced Technology Incubator; Valley Economic Development Center’s proposed Pacoima Entrepreneurship and Training Center; and the proposed Gold Coast Bio Center in the Thousands Oaks area. Andrew Elliot is another entrepreneur sold on the Ventura facility. He founded Lottay, Inc. in 2008, a web site that allows people to give money through PayPal as a “meaningful and fun gift.” Location and support from the city were key for closing the deal, he said. “The reason Ventura works well for us is that our team draws from Santa Barbara and Los Angeles,” said Elliot. “The city is also doing a lot to make an environment that works for companies. It’s responsive to requests and needs.” City investment The city invested $3 million of its economic development fund with DFJ Frontiers, and the venture capital firm is helping steer businesses to Ventura, said Schneider. The city also created a $1.6 million co-investment fund. Lottay, Inc. received a slice of the latter. Operating in the incubator has saved the company a lot of money on renting and building-out office space, said Elliot. Tenants can join forces to ask for upgrades. And working five blocks from the beach is pretty nice since many of his employees surf. The Ventura Ventures Technology Center is getting ready to add an additional 10,000 square feet of space. Officials are exploring the feasibility of offering industrial space. And the center eventually wants to team with a local hospital to offer bio lab space. The incubator no doubt plays to its strength of being located in Ventura and just blocks from the beach, said Schneider. Its motto is “Where High-Tech…Meets High Surf.” But having a great location is just a starting point. “The immediate benefit of the incubator is that we’re helping reverse the stigma that Ventura is just a sleepy beach town,” said Schneider. “Now it’s my sole task to build a network in the high-tech economy and get that deal flow in Ventura.”
Ventura Incubator Targeting Valley Companies
