Public-private partnerships set stage for growth in tech

Northern Nevada has taken important steps to stake out its position in some clusters of high-technology industry, Bob Goff says, but it needs to move quickly.

Goff, president of the Sierra Angels venture capital group based at Incline Village and a leader of the Nevada Center on Entrepreneurship and Technology, says the region's private and public sector are working together more closely to bring technology out of laboratories into the market.

He cites the creation of Research Ventures Inc., a joint venture of the University of Nevada, Reno, and the Desert Research Institute that's designed to commercialize technology developed by the two institutions.

The UNR College of Engineering, to cite another example, initiated a corporate partnership program and one of its goals is developing a tech-trained workforce.

The importance of those partnerships can't be underestimated in a region that doesn't yet have a critical mass of technology companies, says David LaPlante, president and chief executive officer of Twelve Horses North America.

His Reno-based company develops Web-based marketing tools.

"We're achieving our critical mass in the alignment of political, business and educational institutions," LaPlante says.

But Goff notes that Nevada isn't alone in its bid to become a significant player in technology.

"Other regions and states are competing very aggressively as well.

So in my opinion we have a very narrow window of extraordinary opportunity to create some clusters," he says.

LaPlante says technology in companies in northern Nevada and elsewhere should be strengthened in 2005 as investors burned in the dot-com meltdown earlier this decade regain confidence and begin looking anew for opportunities in the industry.

But the challenge is linking capital to people with good ideas.

"Money is always there," LaPlante says."It comes down to the folks finding each other."

Goff 's group provides one of the important channels to match capital with ideas and he says it's stepping up the pace.

"Sierra Angels is expanding our ability to fund both early-stage and later-stage companies and are working closely with California VC groups on collaborative deal flow and investments," he says.

Other channels include the Silver and Golden States venture conference which drew outfits representing some $20 billion in venture capital to Reno this year.A bigger conference, Goff says, is on the drawing boards for next year.

Says LaPlante,"I'm expecting that 2005 is going to be a very sweet comeback year."