With the help of the SW Indiana SBDC Scott Massey and his company, Heliponix, was awarded a large National Science Foundation Small Business Innovation Research grant on Feb. 8. It includes a matching grant from Elevate Ventures. Heliponix has been awarded a SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study the effects of multispectral LED lighting for crop cultivation inside of their GroPods©.
“Without help from the SW Indiana SBDC, none of this would have happened,†said Scott Massey.
Doug Claybourne, SW Indiana SBDC Business Advisor, has had a close relationship with Scott Massey and the development of his company Heliponix.
Claybourne says, “He had won a big ‘pitch’ competition at Purdue to get his business started. He then came to us for assistance and we pointed him to another pitch competition hosted by USI, which he won. Not long after that, he was seeking money to begin production prototypes, so we hooked him up with the Vectren Foundation loan. At that time, he was considering moving the new company to Indianapolis (or another large city). A condition of receiving the Vectren Foundation loan was that the company had to be based in Evansville, which is his home (Memorial HS grad). That was a pivotal moment because he is very happy he made that decision….and we’re very happy he did too.â€
“In addition to those contributions, I introduced him to a company that used to reside in Innovation Pointe. It was made up of former Whirlpool engineers. They relocated to John St. and provided space for Scott and his partner to set up shop. Since they were constructing an appliance, it was a perfect environment to be around other appliance engineers to bounce ideas off of. Later, we started connecting him to additional resources like export assistance through our lead center, Elevate Ventures, and other technical assistance offered by ISBDC.â€
Massey and Heliponix have been featured by the Economic Development Coalition and Inside Indiana Business.
insideindianabusiness.com: Purdue Startup Wins Grant For Greenhouse Technologies
