$10M fund looks for Dayton tech firms

Investor opens round for local companies ready to go to market.

A Virginia-based technology investor is looking for promising Dayton start-ups poised to bring in revenue.

Drawn by Air Force researchers and Dayton know-how, a Virginia-based technology investor is looking for promising Dayton start-ups poised to bring in revenue.

SP Global Inc. has announced a $10 million investment fund for young Dayton-area technology companies.

Timothy Shaw, a vice president with Chantilly, Va.-based SPGlobal as well as president and chief operating officer of the Dayton area’s GlobalFlyte, is SP’s point man in Dayton.

“The whole goal of SPGlobal is to build the Dayton region,” Shaw said. “That’s what we came here for.”

An independent board associated with SPGlobal will make key investment decisions.

The first round of investing is open now for companies ready to achieve their first revenue, and will probably be open for just a very short time before the next funding round — until about the end of the month, Shaw said.

“We’ve got some investors who want to come in right away,” Shaw said.

Shaw, a Xenia native, makes no bones of the fact that the area’s proximity to the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), based on nearby Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, was a real draw.

The fund is positioned for start-up companies who are ready to move from prototyping to going to market with viable products. This funding will be for companies at that crucial stage, Shaw said.

“We evaluate technology,” he said. “Is it going to be a disruptor in the market? Is it going to be beneficial to society? If those two things are there, then we will look at the technology.”

The goal is a big one: Find companies that within five years could be $100 million businesses.

Scott Koorndyk, president of Dayton’s Entrepreneur’s Center, called the fund the first entirely funded with private money to be based in the Dayton area.

“We applaud and welcome this huge impact, strategic investment in the Dayton area and look forward to SP Global Inc.’s continued enthusiastic leadership for our region’s entrepreneurs,” Koorndyk said.

The companies the fund is eyeing now include Dayton’s Mile Two.

Based in the Webster Station neighborhood, Mile Two — headed by AFRL veteran Jeff Graley — has created the “VYE” software unveiled in recent months by Dayton’s Ascend Innovation that tracks a user’s eye movement, lending clues as to whether brain injuries may be an issue.

“Our CEO Tom Burns believes in this region,” Shaw said. “He said, ‘This is where we need to be. This is where technology is. This is where the IP (intellectual property) is, and this is where the growth is going to be.’”