The Research Park at Florida Atlantic University is home to nearly 1,000 jobs after a successful 2022.
Startups based at the Research Park added 119 new jobs last year, according to its 2022 Annual Report. Companies located at the research and development facility in Boca Raton now support 986 jobs in the local innovation economy. More than half of the businesses at the park provide internships or employment to FAU graduates, the report said.
"2022 was a strong collaboration year, and we are forecasting increasingly strong relationships between the university and our businesses going forward, " said Andrew Duffell, president of the Research Park at FAU.
Established in 1985, the Research Park is governed by the Florida Atlantic Research and Development Authority, an independent special district created by Palm Beach and Broward counties in partnership with FAU. It also hosts Global Ventures, an incubator program for second-stage tech firms and FAU Tech Runway, a public-private startup accelerator.
The facility is home to everything from ocean technology to aerospace companies, but is dominated by healthcare. Half of the businesses at the Research Park and 35% of those at Global Ventures work in health care, including startups like FloSpine, DNA Labs, ReachLink and Helix Virtual Medicine.
Ocean cleanup firm 4Ocean, architecture design "unicorn" Material Bank and Xeriant Aerospace are also located at the Research Park.
Last year a majority of the Research Park, which consists of seven office buildings, was sold to Pebb Enterprises and Banyan Development for $37.5 million. The joint venture has a ground leasehold interest position in a combined 308,305 square-feet of office space, with plans to upgrade the buildings and secure tenants that align with the Research Park's mission. The Florida Atlantic Research and Development Authority is still the longterm lease landlord.
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