May meetings to advance Estes Park incubator plan
ESTES PARK — The tourist town at the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park is taking some decisive steps toward forming a business incubator specially designed for a mountain resort community instead of the familiar models that are geared toward an urban technology corridor.
Public meetings led by the Estes Park Economic Development Corp. have been scheduled for the first week in May to continue planning for incubator programs and services in the Estes Valley. Current volunteer members of the incubator committee will attend, and the EDC is encouraging entrepreneurs, potential mentors and angel investors to show up as well.
At the first meeting, to be held from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., Tuesday, May 3, in the Town Board chambers in the town hall, 170 MacGregor Ave., representatives of Austin, Texas-based seed-stage venture-capital firm ATP Management LLC will present and discuss a virtual business incubator as well as planning for growing a sustainable incubator in Estes Park to support entrepreneurship and capital formation in the area. ATP was hired by the EDC after fielding competitive bids from nine consultants.
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From 8 to 9:30 a.m., Wednesday, May 4, incubator planners will hold a startup meeting at Via Bicycle Café, 1751 N. Lake Ave., No. 110.
The project is being funded with the third and final portion of a $300,000 grant the town and the Estes Park EDC received in September 2014 from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration. According to Jon Nicholas, the EDC’s president and chief executive, the first part was used for initial planning for competitive broadband, and the second part was used to develop a regional economic strategy.”
Mike Freeman, chief executive of the Fort Collins-based Innosphere business incubator, is part of the project team, along with Kyle Cox, manager of the ATP Fund; Isaac Barchas, head of the Austin Technology Incubator, the longest-established venture incubator; Ryan Field, research manager at ATI and lead researcher at LiveOak Venture Partners; and Jamie Rhodes, who founded the Central Texas Angel Network and the Association of Texas Angel Networks.
Nicholas has said the incubator would be different than an incubator in Fort Collins, Boulder or Denver because a resort community has different goals and target markets.
More information is available on the EDC’s website, estesparkedc.com.
