INCubator hatches growth companies
Business Development Center graduates 615 successful businesses, aims for more with new director Bill Lupia
In the past decade and a half since he began working at the Hamilton County Business Development Center, Bill Lupia has seen scores of entrepreneurs “hatch” their ideas into successful businesses while being nurtured in the North Chattanooga business incubator.
“The INCubator provides not only lower building and utility costs when businesses are getting started, it also brings together a diverse mix of entrepreneurs who learn from one another about building their businesses,” said Lupia, who was promoted this summer to head the facility billed as the INCubator. “Our clients find their own mentors inside the
building and I think the synergy of having so many startups and growing businesses in one place is one of the biggest assets we offer.”
With 127,000 square feet of space for office or manufacturing work, the INCubator at Manufacturers Road and Cherokee Boulevard is the biggest business incubator in Tennessee and the third largest in the United States. Since its opening in the former 3M factory building in 1988, the Incubator has nurtured and grown more than 600 businesses across an array of industries.
From technology companies like the 3D printing and building company Branch Technologies to consumer product companies like CPR Wrap and Hoff & Pepper, the startup businesses and graduates of the INCubator on Chattanooga’s North Shore are generating millions of dollars in sales and employing hundreds of local workers.
While the U.S. Small Business Administration said half of all business startups fail within their first five years, the INCubator created on Chattanooga’s North Shore so far has achieved a 94% success and survival rate for businesses in the first five years. In its 33-year history, the INCubator has graduated 615 businesses that have moved on to their own offices or factories elsewhere in Chattanooga.
The INCubator is currently home to 43 businesses that share access to common meeting spaces and break rooms and enjoy below-market rental rates for office and factory space. Although the growth of remote work during the coronavirus pandemic reduced demand for office space at the INCubator as it did with most commercial offices, Lupia said demand for factory and warehouse space has remained strong at the INCubator.
“More startups are working from home now and the pandemic has been hard on many businesses,” said Lupia, who adds that the INCubator has more than a dozen office space openings. “But the pandemic has also created lots of opportunities for new businesses that we are trying to help to grow in the INCubator.”
Tony DiSanto, a mechanical and electrical engineer who is founder and co-CEO of One Off Robotics, has the distinction of working at the INCubator as long as anyone. Before starting his own business, DiSanto began working at Branch Technologies as a robotics engineer where he designed and built 3D printed buildings and equipment for everyone from NASA to the Tennessee Valley Federal Credit Union. A couple of years ago, DiSanto broke off from Branch to start his own 3D printing operation.
“The INCubator offers great space at affordable costs and you get tremendous support and encouragement from other tenants also trying to grow their businesses,” DiSanto said “This is a great location that offers a lot of opportunities to interact with other people in a whole range of different businesses. We have a lot of great neighbors who help each other out and that help makes all of us more successful.”
The INCubator offers below-market commercial building rates starting around $6 a square foot for some manufacturing space and $8 a square foot for office space, including utilities and access to common board rooms and other meeting areas. Rates rise the longer the clients stay, and businesses must move out of the INCubator within five years.
The INCubator houses both the local office of the Tennessee Small Business Development Center and the headquarters of Launch Chattanooga, two agencies that work to help entrepreneurs to start and grow their small businesses. The INCubator also complements other services offered in Chattanooga for startup companies in the downtown Innovation District, including the Company Lab, the Enterprise Center and the Chattanooga Chamber of Commerce’s Starting Block program.
“The support we have gotten from Tennessee was definitely a draw to bring us here and has really aided in our company’s growth,” said Platt Boyd, founder and CEO of Branch Technologies, which started in the INCubator as a threeperson company and has grown to a 50-employee firm on Riverside Drive. “There is a real network of startups, a number of accelerator programs to help small businesses grow and the resources of places like ORNL (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) up the road to help us with new materials, designs and innovation.”
Lupia, who was promoted to director of Small Business and Entrepreneurship at the INCubator after 17 years with the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce, said he hopes to develop programs for successful INCubator graduates like Branch Technologies to aid and mentor other local startups.
A native Texan, Lupia is a former U.S. Air Force sergeant with commendations for his Desert Shield and Desert Storm service. Lupia, an Eagle Scout, also serves as a leader and board member of the Boy Scouts of America Cherokee Area Council and serves on the board of the Tennessee Small Business Development Center.
“Bill, along with our team, offers years of experience to lift up entrepreneurs so they can keep innovating,” said Christy Gillenwater, president and CEO of the Chattanooga Chamber of Commerce. “Our INCubator provides an easy-to-understand startup shop all in one place.”