TechRanch firm boasts biotech success
Company helps entrepreneurs turn research, intellectual property into thriving businesses
By LORI GRANNIS
of the Missoulian
When it comes to the technology sector, Montana is hatching some pretty big ideas and TechRanch seems intent on keeping the nest toasty warm.
Based in Bozeman, TechRanch is a statewide economic development entity devoted to helping local entrepreneurs and technology sector start-up companies from as far west as Missoula to as far east as Billings.
In contrast, Missoula's own Montana Technology Enterprise Center (MonTEC), is a technology and business incubator administered by the Missoula Area Economic Development Corp. that offers space, services and support for local technology-based enterprises.
In existence since 2000, MonTEC's mission is to revitalize and diversify the local and regional economy by encouraging commercialization of university research, and increasing economic development in Missoula and western Montana.
TechRanch also focuses efforts on commercialization of research into intellectual property, but specifically targets the development of ideas into innovations, and helps new entrepreneurs formulate a total package that includes funding strategies and the creation of an effective business plan.
But John O'Donnell said TechRanch is quite specific about the kind of client in whom it will invest time and resources.
"We concentrate almost exclusively on truly innovative technology-driven companies statewide," said O'Donnell. "We don't work with service-based companies and entrepreneurs."
The primary technologies upon which TechRanch focuses its effort and energy are those innovations and ideas based in the life sciences such as medical technology, in information technology, and in technologies that center on developing clean renewable energy.
Bacterin International Inc. emerged as a highly successful and sought-after medical technology company with the help of TechRanch. The life sciences corporation develops antimicrobial coating technologies used in the manufacture of medical devices such as catheters, vascular stints and other surgical devices.
The company's innovations, O'Donnell said, prevent bacterial microbes from colonizing inside the body during surgical procedures.
Conceived at the Montana State University Center for Biofilm Engineering, TechRanch and O'Donnell commercialized the research through an exhaustive yearlong process that produced a package investors wanted.
O'Donnell, a two-time entrepreneur himself with a successful track record in raising capital, has been at the helm of the not-for-profit TechRanch for seven years. He was chosen as director, he said, because he understands what it is to be an entrepreneur himself.
Elk River Systems, an IT firm that developed online ticketing for smaller venues that industry giants like Ticketmaster won't serve, is another success story to emerge from TechRanch, O'Donnell said.
But the list is exhaustive.
TechRanch also works with Missoula's Sustainable Systems and local pharmaceutical start-up LigoCyte.
Missoula's Sustainable Systems a leader in the industry of renewable fuels and bio-based product development regularly taps into the TechRanch network of resources, which includes its advisory board, proprietary list of private investors, and service provider networks.
"Sustainable Systems has the benefit of being under MonTEC's roof up in Missoula and the benefit of tapping into our investor pool and development resources," O'Donnell explained.
The companies TechRanch nurtures through the start-up phase and funding process tend to have intellectual property as their core asset, said O'Donnell.
"Usually it's an algorithm patented for software, or a new drug discovery."
Out of all the start-ups TechRanch helps navigate toward success, the one potential all must possess is a capacity for global markets.
"That's a big difference between us and MonTEC," said O'Donnell, whose goal to create an asset from intellectual property is shared by MonTEC.
Founded in 2000 in an effort to commercialize important research at the university level, TechRanch has no ties to any particular university, O'Donnell explained, and will work with research derived from MSU and other learning institutions that are rife with technological research.
"We work with entrepreneurs from around the state using research from all sources," said O'Donnell, who said big ideas don't just pool in one place.
"Actually, stakeholders want to engage in projects outside of Bozeman because things are good here economically." It's an even bigger win, he said, when they can get a business off the ground in places like Great Falls and Butte.
Elk River Systems emerged in rural Harlowton and consisted of just two people, he said.
"We spent a year with them that led to their ability to raise money from sophisticated investors to continue to build their company," said O'Donnell.
TechRanch only works with companies in the beginning stages of development entities the banks won't yet touch because they have no assets to use as collateral.
"Most of our clients require equity financing and not debt financing," said O'Donnell of prospective start-ups. That means venture capital and angel investors specifically.
"We understand what venture capitalists and angel investors need to see," he said. It's the goal of TechRanch, he said, to package companies and innovations to make them as attractive as possible.
Reporter Lori Grannis can be reached at 523-5251 or lori.grannis@missoulian.com.