Accelerating entrepreneurship
and job creation.
About
Innosphere’s mission: Accelerate job creation and entrepreneurship, and create long-term, regional economic impact by offering clients access to a broad network of specialized resources. This is accomplished through efficient, personalized growth strategies that streamline the entrepreneur’s path to success.
Innosphere, founded in 1999, is a non-profit 501(c)(3) startup incubator headquartered in Fort Collins with a satellite office in Denver and specialized facilities at Colorado State University. Innosphere supports highly motivated entrepreneurs working on innovations that matter in the industries of Health, Energy & Advanced Materials, and Enterprise Software & Hardware. Over the years, Innosphere has tracked a 75% success rate for client companies.
Innosphere has offices in Fort Collins, Boulder and Denver
Our Deep Commitment to Colorado - The Scaleup Campaign
Innosphere hit a major milestone in 2018, we hit 20 years in business! And, we are going to be here another 20 years supporting science and technology entrepreneurs and driving economic growth in key industries.
With entrepreneurs, we often ask them the overused question – What problem are you trying to solve? Over the years, at Innosphere we have been actively solving the problems that technical startup founders face in the early years. In the next five to ten years, Innosphere’s Scaleup Campaign is designed to specifically address three economic opportunities and issues facing Colorado.
– The need to drive more startup to scaleup success to supercharge technology job creation
– The lower than expected growth in the technology gross domestic product in Fort Collins, Denver, and Boulder
– The need to increase the flow of capital in the seed stages of funding for science and technology companies – defined as $1.5M and less in capital raise
The Scaleup Campaign has three main components:
– Expand Fort Collins headquarters to add 8k sq/feet of wet lab space to grow the biosciences sector
– Build a 50k sq/feet facility in Denver to support the city’s growth as a technology hub and grow the science and technology sectors
– Enhance program activity to increase the number of startup and scaleup ventures supported
University Partnerships
Innosphere partners with Colorado’s three major research universities to help bring university innovations to market. By working closely with university technology transfer offices, Innosphere matches the inventions to industry expertise for commercial assessment, develops commercialization strategies, facilitates licensing deals, and recruits the management teams capable of launching companies to commercialize the research.
Staff
Mike Freeman
CEO 
Scott Sampl
Director of Operations
Tom Fuhr
Program Manager-Castle Rock
Aziza Syed
Education Program Coordinator
PJ Williams
Senior Associate
Katie Maher
Marketing Associate
Jordyn Kopcow
Human Resource Associate
Bud Michael
Director, Software & Hardware Programs
Emily Wilson
Communications Director
Ben Walker
Life Sciences Program Director
Mark Gorham
Cleantech Program Director
Gili Elkin
ICI Fund General Partner
Jakob Porter
Research Associate
Erin Kopal
Research Associate
Susan Strong
Boulder Director
Bob Johns
Director, Corporate Partnerships
Executives in Residence
George Hayes
Executive in Residence, Health Care
Dr. Ben Guiot
Executive in Residence, Chief Medical Officer
Board of Directors
DuWayne Peterson
Board Secretary
Colorado Angel Investors, Vice Chair
Innosphere, Angel-in-Residence
Brian Zimbelman
Board Member
Crawley Ventures
Steve Foster
Board Member
Connect13, LLC
Josh Birks
Board Member
City of Fort Collins, Economic Health Office
Dave Hoesing
Board Member
City of Loveland, Economic Development Department
Todd Headley
Board Member
Colorado State University Ventures
Bob Clancy
Board Member
Guaranty Bank and Trust Company, Vice President
Will Vaughan
Board Member
Colorado School of Mines, TTO Director
Merc Mercure
Board Member
Entrepreneur
John Leonard
Board Treasurer
Fairfield & Woods, P.C.
Darin Atteberry
Board Member
City of Fort Collins, City Manager
Kevin Cudney
Board Member
Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber and Schreck
Dr. Alan Rudolph
Board Member
Colorado State University, Vice President for Research (VPR) Office
Todd Campbell
Board Member
1st National Bank
Brent Hendricks
Board Member
EKS&H
Chris Christopher
Board Member
Innosphere, SAGE
Terri Fiez
Board Member
University of Colorado, Vice Chancellor for Research
Jane Brautigam
Board Member
City of Boulder, City Manager
The Innosphere Building
Innosphere is lucky to have a state-of-the-art building located in north Fort Collins: 320 East Vine Drive, Fort Collins, CO 80524 (Map)
Parking: Innosphere holds many large events and parking is limited, so there is an overflow parking lot location just east of Innosphere behind the wooden fence.
Building snapshot:
- LEED Platinum, 30,000+ square feet, 3-story building
- Private laboratory space equipped with fume hoods
- Shared printer and kitchen area
- Small workout room, showers, and changing area
- A variety of large and small meeting and conference spaces
- Outside patio area with firepit
- Secure bicycle pavilion, and access to Poudre River bike trail system
For information on leasing space at our headquarters in Fort Collins, click here.