California connecting

When you’re trying to grow a high-tech company, there’s no place like San Francisco and the Silicon Valley.

The Freedom Circle neighbourhood in Santa Clara alone is home to Oracle, Sun Microsystems, McAfee and Yahoo!

That’s part of the attraction at the Silicon Valley-based Girvan Institute.

While it could cost an arm and a leg to set up shop in the San Francisco Bay Area, it needn’t cost a fortune to make use of Girvan’s expertise and location.

Director of business development Santiago Balcarce says the not-for-profit institute aims to foster innovation for the sake of the economy.

For just US$1,200 per year, a company can be a ‘virtual affiliate’.

That means you can access the facilities when you send someone in-country, as well as a local telephone number and address.

What’s more, affiliates can take advantage of introductions to potential clients and funding partners.

Sonar6 is one of the nine New Zealand companies that have such a relationship with Girvan.

Chief executive John Holt says the company wanted a presence in Silicon Valley.

The ability to quickly scale up, made the decision to sign on even more attractive.

“There’s probably no better region in the US in terms of acceptance of new ideas and new companies,” says Holt, “but clients expect a company to be on the path to establishment.”

While hopping on a plane to get to a West Coast meeting might be acceptable for the first few months, he says, before long customers want to know that yours is a company that will have sustainability in the market.

That makes a Bay Area presence key.

When the time comes to hiring staff, Sonar6 can shift into a bigger office without a change of address.

“We could have a full office facility literally within a week,” says Holt.

No more couch crashing 

Other companies make use of the incubator’s facilitation services, monthly forums and guidance.

As Girvan’s involvement increases, so does the company’s financial obligation.

Monthly fees start at US$225 per month.

As more services are provided, Girvan may, for example, take an equity stake of two to five percent and create a structure where compensation occurs as milestones are reached.

The goal, says Balcarce, is to use that money to build an early stage seed fund.

“We are technology agnostic,” says Balcarce, “but we like to see technology that is globally expandable.”

That technology can be IT, hardware, nanotechnology or innovation applied to traditional technology.

The latter is the case with FX Bikes.

The Christchurch-based company designs and builds off-road, high-performance bikes that combine the agility of a mountain bike with the grunt of motocross.

While San Francisco wasn’t the company’s preferred destination, the connections Girvan has with potential collaborators, joint venture partners and investors meant a lot.

Luckily for FX Bikes founder Mike Hodgkinson, Girvan has a second location in southern California, and that address worked better for him.

When Hodgkinson travels to the US, he uses one of the hot desks that Girvan has set aside for affiliate members and takes advantage of the incubator’s car parks.