Colorado Springs Startup Week participants hit the road on Tuesday afternoon for a VIP Startup Crawl that toured three different companies making an impact on the local business scene.
The VIP tour group traveled in style to each of the locations, riding in a party bus that showcased the services of yet another local startup, LocalMotive.
LocalMotive launched two years ago as a tour company that runs bar and restaurant crawls in Colorado Springs using renovated school busses decked out with lighting, music, snacks and a karaoke machine.
The crawl’s first stop was Exponential Impact, a nonprofit tech startup accelerator offering mentorship, seed funding, leadership training and camps for entrepreneurs.
Program director Ethan Lavin said that Exponential Impact provides a unique startup ecosystem that promotes engagement between participants as they gain the skills and support they need to grow.
Participant Lawrence Wagner, CEO and co-founder of Spark Mindset, said that Exponential Impact’s 14-week accelerator program was very helpful. Wagner’s organization provides cybersecurity education and programs for low-income students and he recently held one of his cybersecurity camps at the Exponential Impact hub.
“This program is one of the best I have been a part of,” he said.
After mingling and enjoying a beer with the Exponential Impact team and some of its startup participants, the group hopped on the bus for a brief drive up the road to Milestones for Growth, a new hub for light manufacturers that operates like a coworking space.
Renting manufacturing space in the heart of the city is expensive and licensing, permits, building codes and remodeling only add to the expenses that can hamper growth for a business that is still in the growth phase.
“We provide space for light manufacturers that are between startup and maturity,” said Jen Taylor, head of marketing and strategic partnerships. “The purpose is to keep these manufacturing jobs in Colorado Springs.”
Tenant Chris Vestal said that the space offered is more affordable than other locations he looked at. His company, MotoMinded, designs aftermarket parts and accessories for dirt bikes. The money he has saved on rent has freed up his budget to invest in advertising and other initiatives. And, Vestal notes, there are other benefits to the collaborative space, like communal amenities.
Milestones owner and co-founder Mary Fagnant said the building offers conference space, break rooms, trailer storage, loading bays and storage space.
“This is the first place like this in the Springs,” said Fagnant. “Even similar locations in Denver don’t offer all the amenities our building provides.”
The final stop on the tour took the group to Titan Robotics, a company that provides production additive manufacturing solutions including large-format 3D printers, large-format 3D printing, and filament and pellet feedstock.
What began in founder and CEO Clay Guillory’s garage in 2014 has grown into a 10,000-square-foot facility with one building for the assembly of the machines and another for creating 3D-printed parts.
Maddie Guillory, the company’s CMO and head of customer relations, said it will move to an even larger location in eastern Colorado Springs in December — double the size of their current facility.
Partner and CCO Rahul Kasat said it takes 8-10 weeks to build a standard 3D printing machine and 12-16 weeks for a custom job. Once a machine is built, it’s shipped to the location where Titan installs and trains the customer on how to use it.
Guillory said that the company sets itself apart from competitors with a system that allows for the use of filaments, pellets or both, as well as customization, personal service and competitively priced materials.
“We provide ourselves on being a solutions provider,” said Guillory.
