National accelerator Plug & Play near UCF to support smart city startups

The Sunnyvale, California-based startup accelerator Plug & Play Tech Center opened its first Orlando office Feb. 1 at 3251 Progress Drive in Research Park near the University of Central Florida. 

Like each of Plug & Play’s 100 accelerators in 50 locations around the world, Orlando will focus on a specific vertical.

Plug & Play’s funding partners — the University of Central Florida, Orange County government, Duke Energy and Tavistock — agreed that smart city technology is what’s most needed here, said the Orange County mayor's Chief of Staff Roseann Harrington. 

Harrington pointed to specific regional problems she believes can be solved with technology, such as transportation and public safety. “We have a $21 billion deficit in transportation, and we're getting ready to go back and talk about a [dedicated transportation] sales tax. How can we bring in these entrepreneurs to help us solve problems?” 

Central Florida’s entrepreneurial ecosystem includes groups designed to nurture tech startups, and Harrington said Plug & Play will work “hand in glove” with Tech Grove, Starter Studio in downtown Orlando and other more established Central Florida support organizations. 

Plug & Play’s primary focus is to attract talent to the region and bring businesses here, while the existing groups are more focused on local talent, she said. “We're already getting inquiries from around the world, people saying, ‘I want to come to Orange County. You’ve got the Space Coast, theme parks, the airport, modeling, simulation and training. I want to be there.’ We get them here and we get them to stay — and that's the economic development component of it.” 

The Orlando Plug & Play office will be led by Jake McGee, who has worked in Plug & Play’s corporate innovation division for almost three years. The former NFL athlete who played for the Pittsburgh Steelers was attracted to Plug & Play by getting to know Plug & Play Chief Revenue Officer and Partner Michael Olmsted through a mutual friend, he said. “I told Michael I was looking to get out of the sports industry, and he said if I was serious about that, to hit him up the following Monday. Two weeks later, I started my new job."

McGee is looking for three more people to fill posts in his office: a director, a ventures analyst and a program events community manager. 

The three-month program will have two cohorts a year of 10-plus startups, he said. About half the startups will be from Central Florida, with the rest from around the globe "to really harp on that business retention and business attraction."

Meanwhile, a Plug & Play office in Kissimmee's NeoCity Bridg building will focus on semiconductor technology. The company doesn't have a launch date for that office yet, but is in the hiring process, said McGee.

Meanwhile, Plug & Play also scouts on behalf of established tech firms in specific industry verticals, and those introductions can be a significant launch pad. “We are contacting all our corporate partners to let them know what we’re going to do in Florida, asking them to be a part of choosing startups to invest in,” said CEO Saeed Amidi. 

Plug & Play Tech Center

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