Flow Science is among ten New Mexico businesses – headquartered in Abiquiu, Albuquerque, Alcalde, Santa Fe and Taos – who have been named winners of the 2014 Venture Acceleration Fund (VAF) awards. VAF was initiated in 2006 by Los Alamos National Security, LLC (LANS), the company that manages Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), to stimulate the economy by supporting growth oriented companies.
“Since the VAF was initiated in 2006, Los Alamos National Security has invested approximately $3 million in 49 New Mexico businesses,” said David Pesiri, director of the Feynman Center for Innovation. “Now it’s a community effort, with Los Alamos County, the city of Santa Fe and MEP stepping forward to partner with us. It’s encouraging to see that the payback triggers we implemented in 2013 are already creating sustainability for the fund.” Pesiri said.
The grant awards are administered by the Regional Development Corporation’s Los Alamos Connect program in coordination with Los Alamos National Laboratory. LANS invested $306,000, Los Alamos County invested $25,000, Santa Fe city government invested $30,000, New Mexico Manufacturing Extension (MEP) Partnership invested $25,000, and $30,000 came from repayment to the Regional Development Corporation by a previous year VAF grant recipient.
“This year brought in more qualified applicants than ever before, and I am excited to see the improvements in the economic climate the winners will help create here in Northern New Mexico,” said Kurt Steinhaus, Los Alamos’ Community Programs Office director.
“We’re quite excited to be involved with this program, and thankful to LANL for its being a supporter of small New Mexico businesses. The funding received will be used to help fund our efforts to make a big leap forward in high performance computing, which we believe can help us grow substantially,” commented Thomas Jensen, President of Flow Science.
This Venture Acceleration Fund was originally created to commercialize technologies developed at the Lab but now includes all types of businesses in every stage of development. The Venture Acceleration Fund is part of Los Alamos Connect, that aims to help entrepreneurs and businesses reach the next level of success and grow the economy in Northern New Mexico.