June 30, 2023

By Melissa Paulsen

In honor of Engineer’s Week, the Montana High Tech Business Alliance and Montana State University Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering co-hosted the panel “Innovation & Entrepreneurship at MSU” on Wednesday, February 22nd, 2023. The panel featured MSU alumni and faculty who have launched successful tech startups and explored entrepreneurship as a viable career pathway for all students regardless of their major. Speakers included:

• Sam Atkins, president and co-founder, Foothold

• Dr. Anja Kunze, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering MSU and co-founder, NanoMagnetic Solutions

• Dr. Brock LaMeres, professor of electrical and computer engineering MSU and founder, Resilient Computing

Keep reading for key takeaways from the conversation.

#1: Leverage Montana’s Generous Entrepreneurial Support Networks

All three panelists highlighted Montana’s supportive and robust entrepreneurial community as a great way to establish a network and meet mentors.

“[Entrepreneurship] is a relentless practice of improving your idea [and] what you want to do,” said Sam Atkins, president and co-founder of Foothold. “The most valuable thing for [Foothold] was mentorship [which] you can access through your network.”

Atkins told of meeting a businessman who spends summers in an off-the-grid cabin in Montana’s Flathead Valley and used to run a modular building factory in Elkhart County, Indiana.

“They did 1000 units a year of housing,” Atkins said. “I wouldn't have guessed in a million years that you would find somebody like that…and that these people exist in the Montana ecosystem of business and entrepreneurship and there’s nothing that delights them more than having somebody come to them with a cool idea and the gumption to make it work.”

Atkins graduated with a bachelor’s degree in cell biology & neuroscience as well as a bachelor’s degree in ecology & evolution from MSU in 2014. He said the Montana Manufacturing Extension Center (MMEC) played a huge role in getting Foothold off the ground and that the MSU Blackstone Launchpad helped ensure Foothold’s story was relatable, coherent, and compelling to attract potential investors.

Founded in 2021 as a public-benefit corporation, Foothold builds sustainable and affordable prefabricated homes to help address the severe shortage of affordable housing in Montana. The company’s carpenters construct halves or thirds of houses in the Butte factory that are then set onto trucks and driven within a 250-mile radius to cities such as Bozeman, Missoula, Kalispell, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Foothold constructs small houses ranging from 400 to 1200 square feet which is equivalent to one-bedroom studios up to two-bedroom configurations. The Butte-based company has a 9000-square-foot facility and 15 full-time employees. Last year, Foothold set 10 houses in the ground and was named a MHTBA 2022 Startup to Watch.

Atkins said now that Foothold has proof of concept, he and co-founder and CEO Hannah Van Wetter are in discussions with varied partners across the region to help meet the demand for housing.

“Organizations, large entities, schools and universities, hospitals, all the way to nonprofit developers and [tribal communities] are thinking creatively about ‘how do we create housing?’” Atkins said.  

Connecting with local mentors like Ann Peterson, Program Director for the Montana Innovation Partnership (MTIP) powered by TechLink, helped Dr. Brock LaMeres take the first steps in launching his startup, Resilient Computing. MTIP promotes technology-based economic development in the state through education and expert technical assistance for SBIR/STTR applicants.

“I went through all these training webinars on how to write a small business proposal, how to do a budget, [and] how to calculate your overhead percentage,” LaMeres said. “That [training] really helped me get to the point where I could put together a competitive small business proposal.”

Resilient Computing creates ultra-reliable computers that are malware resistant and can withstand radiation in space. In 2022, Resilient Computing was listed as a MHTBA High-Growth Company to Watch. The company is working toward producing its computers in commercial form and by 2024 Resilient Computing will have one of its computers on the surface of the moon.

LaMeres grew up in Billings and earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from MSU. He worked as a design engineer for eight years at Hewlitt-Packard (HP) and received his master’s and Ph.D. from the University of Colorado before returning to Bozeman. LaMeres has been teaching for almost two decades at MSU and holds 13 patents in digital systems.

Beyond helping entrepreneurs scale their companies and secure funding, Montana’s university system can also assist with developing intellectual property and securing licensing.

“When you work at MSU as faculty [or] as a graduate student, the technology is owned by MSU [so] we license everything through the tech transfer office,” said Dr. Anja Kunze. “Have a meeting with the [Tech Transfer Office], tell them what your research is, what your technology is [and] have conversations [about] what you're doing in the lab. [The Tech Transfer Office] will advise you on what parts [of your research] can be put into provisional patents and which parts are open source. From this trajectory, [the Tech Transfer Office] will take care of [licensing] and you’ll [continue to] work with them [by] providing materials.”

Kunze has a background in electrical and computer engineering. She earned her master’s in electrical engineering from the Technical University of Dresden in Germany and obtained her Ph.D. in Microsystems and Microelectronics in Switzerland from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne which she called the “MIT of Europe.” As a co-founder of NanoMagnetic Solutions, a Bozeman-based biotech startup, Kunze develops advanced tools that use magnetic forces for gene editing. Working alongside both undergraduate and graduate students at MSU, Kunze relies on nanotechnology to study brain cell behavior. The startup is in the process of implementing its research into a tool that can be sold and used to learn more about brain cells, bone tissue, hard tissue, and other materials.

For additional entrepreneurial support networks in Montana, check out the Alliance’s funding & business support resource guide.

#2: Use Local Pitch Competitions as a Steppingstone

All three panelists credited the MSU Blackstone Launchpad and the Jake Jabs College of Business $50K Venture Capital Competition as crucial steppingstones for their startups. As a non-profit resource for students, alumni, and faculty interested in pursuing business and entrepreneurship, the MSU Blackstone Launchpad pairs entrepreneurs with experienced MSU business faculty advisors to help entrepreneurs perfect their business plans, elevator pitch, slide decks, and more.

Kunze said the invaluable mentorship she received from the Blackstone Launchpad and venture capital competition served as a gateway to other pitch competitions. Her experiences helped her understand pitch decks and become more knowledgeable about the business aspects that accompany her nanoparticle research.

In 2020, NanoMagentic Solutions placed 2nd overall in the Jake Jabs $50K Venture Capital Competition for traditional ventures. Kunze advised students and aspiring entrepreneurs to soak up as much knowledge as they can from local pitch competitions and to strive for continuous improvement since no two pitch competitions are the same.

“You can always improve something [in your pitch],” she said. “Continue working on [your pitch] even if you have your slides together. Next time, you might want to add more details, or you might want to improve your problem statements and go deeper. Reach out to any type of local pitch competition and go from there.”

In 2021, LaMeres and Atkins also competed in the Jake Jabs $50K Venture Capital Competition and won first place in the traditional and social venture categories respectively. Kunze and LaMeres also participated in the Early Stage Montana Hyperaccelerator.

LaMeres praised the venture capital competitions for helping him master his elevator pitch and the business applications behind Resilient Computing.

“Pitch competitions are extremely valuable,” LaMeres explained. “For one, it really makes you think about the story you’re telling. You have a short amount of time and are supposed to take this 25-page technical proposal, cram it into about 30 seconds, and then also throw in this business side to make this big story arc. It was an awesome experience to try to come up with a complete message about [Resilient Computing].”

Six months after pitching locally, LaMeres and Resilient Computing participated in a national NASA pitch competition, winning first place and $90,000.

#3: Explore Creative Options for Raising Capital

Every entrepreneur’s journey is unique, and the panelists’ own stories exemplify their different approaches to raising capital for their startups.

“What I did in terms of funding was follow a very linear path that has been set up by other people, which involves things like getting approval from the Board of Regents to work outside of the university, licensing the technology out of my own lab, and getting seed funding from [the MSU] tech transfer office,” LaMeres said. “Then I went after SBIR and STTR grants.”

LaMeres recommended small business entrepreneurs check the Technical and Business Assistance (TABA) box to qualify for extra funding which can be done during phase one and phase two of growth.

“During phase one you can add $6,500 bucks, and you basically get money to hire a consultant that will help you with things like setting up your accounting system, doing market research, and the business side of things,” LaMeres explained. “But when you get to phase two, [you can receive up to] $50K, and you can use some of that TABA money to do IP protection.”

Although SBIR/STTR grants have been key enablers to Resilient Computing’s two years of tech development, LaMeres said the pitch competition prize money he won back in 2021 was vital for scaling the company.

“It was extremely valuable money because there were no strings attached,” LaMeres said. “We made progress that we probably wouldn’t have been able to do with just normal grant money.”

According to Kunze, NanoMagnetic Solutions is striving toward getting its research funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH) or the National Science Foundation (NSF). The startup has also had success when applying for internal catalyst funds from MSU. Kunze is also looking for funding.

“We are in need of a relatively large number of seed funds to really get [NanoMagnetic Solutions] off and independent of the university,” Kunze said. She also suggested that having more independent incubator spaces could help increase the number of Montana bioscience entrepreneurs in the future.

Atkins and his co-founder, Hannah Van Wetter pursued equity financing for Foothold. They opted for $250k of pre-seed funding, followed by a $500K seed round based on a revenue-based financing model designed by Homestake Ventures, a Montana-based outfit that works with family-owned businesses and mission-aligned capital investors.

“So essentially, it’s a debt note and you pay it back as a percentage of some business metric, in our case it’s gross monthly receipts,” Atkins said. “For us, that felt like a really nice way to balance the competing interests of retaining equity and then also investor returns.”

When asked what advice he would offer to other founders on a fundraising journey, Atkins emphasized the importance of telling a good story.

“If you’re writing a grant, if you’re at a pitch competition, if you’re shaking somebody’s hand over at Bridger Brewing and you’re telling them your crazy idea, you have to have a story,” Atkins said. “You have to be good at what you do. You have to have the fundamentals down. You have to know what you're talking about. But what [raising capital] really comes down to is telling something compelling that somebody believes in. And that’s how you really set the hook, at least in my experience.”

About the Publisher: Launched in 2014, the Montana High Tech Business Alliance is a nonpartisan nonprofit association of more than 200 high tech and manufacturing companies and affiliates creating high-paying jobs in Montana. For more information, visit MTHighTech.org or subscribe to our biweekly newsletter.

About the Author: Melissa Paulsen is the communications coordinator for the Montana High Tech Business Alliance. She graduated from the University of Montana in 2022 with a BFA in creative writing and a minor in history.