These are the 2023 Fire Awards honorees in the Igniting category. Read about all of this year's honorees here.
Hopeworks
Industry: nonprofit
Headquarters: Camden, New Jersey
Based in Camden, New Jersey, this past year nonprofit Hopeworks opened a new outpost across the river in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia. With its expanded reach, Hopeworks is doubling down on its goal to train the region's tech talent of tomorrow. To do so, the organization is training and helping place young people, with a specific focus on those ages 16 to 27, into high-paying jobs through partnerships with big-name companies such as Philadelphia-based Comcast, Dell, JPMorgan Chase, the NBA Foundation and Camden-based utility American Water. Program alumni who have secured full-time jobs are making an average wage of $44,000 per year. Those young adults have a 12-month retention rate of more than 91% in those jobs. Led by Dan Rhoton since 2015, Hopeworks has also seen revenue grow some 315% in the past eight years.
The Innovation Space
Industry: incubator/accelerator
Headquarters: Wilmington, Delaware
There are few spaces more fitting for local scientists to set up shop as they undertake research than Dupont’s Experimental Station in Wilmington. Founded in 1903, the campus has been a hub for innovation for well over a century, a legacy carried on by the Innovation Space. Taking up 130,000 square feet on the chemical juggernaut’s campus, the Innovation Space is a collaboration between Dupont, the University of Delaware and the State of Delaware. It was founded in 2017 through the public-private partnership as a way to support life sciences startups by providing lab space and equipment, coaching, mentoring and access to potential investors. In the six years since it was established, the Innovation Space has supported 100 companies, a milestone it hit earlier this year. Collectively, those companies have added over 600 jobs. The Innovation Space’s portfolio has raised more than $900 million so far and it expects that figure to cross the $1 billion threshold later this year. In the 12-month period ended in May 2023, the center added 26 companies to its portfolio and its companies secured more than $140 million in funding.
Pennsylvania Biotechnology Center of Bucks County
Industry: incubator/accelerator
Headquarters: Doylestown
Based in Doylestown, the Pennsylvania Biotechnology Center has been supporting life sciences companies in Bucks County and beyond for nearly two decades. It debuted in 2006 and today its facilities span 150,000 square feet. The center, opened by the Hepatitis B Foundation and managed by the Baruch S. Blumberg Institute, is funded in part by a grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. More than 100 companies are members of the Pennsylvania Biotechnology Center and roughly half have a presence on the campus. Member companies include Arbutus Biopharma, Fox Chase Therapeutics Discovery, Incite Health, Thermo Fisher Scientific and WeThrivv. According to a 2021 economic study undertaken by KLIOS Consulting on behalf of the center, from 2016 to 2021, the center’s economic impact was $7.3 billion, the vast majority – $6.3 billion – of which was local to Bucks County. It is also a driver of jobs and in that same timeframe was associated with 500 jobs directly and an additional 635 as a result of spending and output. Expanding its impact, late last year the center was awarded a $5 million state grant for its new Academic Innovation Zone program, which will directly support early stage life sciences companies and academic technologies on its campus and through the B+labs incubator at the Cira Centre in Philadelphia.
Pennovation Works
Industry: incubator/accelerator
Headquarters: Philadelphia
The University of Pennsylvania’s Pennovation Works is rapidly becoming a hub for innovation that has produced hundreds of startups and netted billions in funding. The Ivy League school’s Grays Ferry campus is anchored by the Pennovation Center, a 58,000-square-foot building opened in 2017 that functions as a business incubator and laboratory with specific spaces for startups coming out of Penn. Presently, it is home to the likes of technology, biotechnology and environmental startups such as Avisi Technologies, Ghost Robotics and TreeSwift. Continuing its investment in innovation and startups, Pennovation Works is undertaking a development totaling 1.8 million square feet at the site, creating more lab and office space to further its role in building Philadelphia’s startups. That growth will happen under the watch of Denita Henderson, a Penn alumna who was appointed the second managing director of Pennovation Works in November. In 2022, Pennovation Works had 74 active companies, which raised $65 million in capital. This summer, 10 more startups completed the Pennovation Accelerator, first launched in 2018. Its latest cohort brings its total number of companies to go through the six-week program to 57.
