Lance Cpl. Shandra Dyess
Startup 2.0 — From page 1
Andrew Grandin, mechanical design engineer with American Unmanned Systems, takes pictures of the Guardbot while swimming in the water beside it during testing Sept. 30. The Guardbot can reach speeds of up to 6 knots in water, requiring an adept swimmer for this task.
Anchors away for Guardbot— From page 1
unmanned drone helicopter to perform aerial surveillance, American Unmanned Systems has since developed on its own dime a futuristic robot that rolls from point A to point B. AUS envisions the Guardbot bounding onto beaches in advance of U.S. Marines or commando teams, getting a look at defenses in advance of soldiers wading ashore or other military moves. With the 1993 Gulf War, the U.S. military began expanding its use of aerial drones for surveillance and attack; and in 2000 it began purchasing ground-based robots to ferret out roadside bombs and for other purposes. The Pentagon uses more than 2,000 Packbot units from Bedford, Mass.-based iRobot, and some 3,000 TALON robots from QinetiQ and a predecessor company. Whereas the Packbot and TALON robots roll on tracks, AUS’ Guardbot simply rolls – at a speed of up to 7 miles an hour for about nine hours, able to traverse water, sand, muck, and inclines up to 24 degrees steep, according to AUS. In a Fairfield County Business Journal interview earlier this year, U.S. Rep. Jim Himes highlighted AUS as among the most extraordinary companies he has come across in lower Fairfield County – in fact, AUS’ design for the Guardian unmanned helicopter is among the few adornments in Himes’
spare Stamford office. AUS founder Peter Muhlrad previously led the U.S. operations of Sweden’s CybAero, which also markets an unmanned helicopter for surveillance. AUS and CybAero are not the only ones chasing potential helicopter drone business – Stratford-based Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. has long tinkered with unmanned drone options for the military, most recently flying a remote-controlled Black Hawk helicopter; and the K-MAX helicopter drone co-developed by Lockheed Martin and Bloomfield-based Kaman Corp. has seen duty in Afghanistan. The U.S. Department of Defense plans to spend $5.8 billion on unmanned autonomous vehicles and research in 2013, a reported 13 percent drop from last year, with nearly $700 million going toward Northrop Grumman’s Fire Scout helicopter drone. With the Pentagon having demonstrated the appeal of ground-based robots, law enforcement and other emergency agencies are fast taking notice, according to Global Information Inc., a Farmington market research company that issued a UAV industry report in late May. For now the only demonstration that matters for Muhlrad is the one that transpired on a New York City pier in late May -- but AUS hopes more is in store for its rolling robot, perhaps to include commercial applications such as a version of the Guardbot rolling around PGA tournaments to get up-close pictures of golf shots.
Innovation Center startup incubator, with U.S. Rep. Jim Himes on hand to field questions about the new JOBS Act, which among other measures allows for crowdfunding of startups outside the realm of venture capital. A proposed Startup Act 2.0 would create a research and development tax credit for startups, worth up to $250,000 or 20 percent of W-2 wages. Malloy is channeling state funding to the market via Connecticut Innovations, a quasi-state entity, while looking to boost services for entrepreneurs through a budding network of business incubators to include the Stamford Innovation Center. At the JOBS Act panel, one venture capitalist voiced support for the state’s renewed push on entrepreneurship, but questioned the strategy of parsing out funding through a state-backed entity like Connecticut Innovations. “Other states like Indiana, Illinois and others have matching programs,” said Geoff Schneider, founder and managing partner of Cava Capital in Wilton. “They took the $250 million that we just took in essence for Connecticut Innovations, and they spread it out across other managers. They said, ‘Look, we’re not going to be in
Growth, Indeed — From page 1
year and allowing jobseekers to apply for jobs directly from its website. In March, a company called SilkRoad published a study showing Indeed provides more new hires than any other recruitment source, ahead of CareerBuilder, Monster, Craigslist, LinkedIn and SimplyHired, as well as campus and recruiter websites. Indeed is the only Fairfield County company to rank among the 100 most-visited web sites in the United States, according to Alexa Internet Inc., even as it has expanded to more than 50 other countries. The company employs some 500 people, including 150 in Stamford, according to Forster. In March, the company announced plans to add 50 people in Dublin, Ireland, which will serve as the base of its European expansion. The question becomes the degree to which Indeed would add jobs in Stamford with any major infusion of capital from
the business of sourcing deals and we’re not going to be in the business of (choosing) which deals to do. What we want to do is make sure we believe in (venture capitalists) and do the due diligence on you, the firm. If you do the deal, we will match that deal – no questions asked, up to a certain level.’ “I don’t get paid for that, and I don’t make any money on that,” Schneider said. “But it brings (in) capital, and that’s a huge, huge way to get things flowing.” Still, Schneider supported Connecticut’s overall efforts, saying the seeds were planted more than a decade ago for what has become a dynamic digital media startup environment in New York City, which the Stamford Innovation Center and others hope to replicate here. Several in attendance said Connecticut still struggles with a sleepy reputation, however, in comparison with the far larger startup communities in Boston and New York City. Leonora Valvo, CEO of the Norwalkbased event software startup etouches, said the state badly needs the buzz that the state is looking to foster. “The feedback we get from these kids is that it doesn’t occur to them that the kinds of business like etouches and others are here,” Valvo said. “The reality is they don’t think of (Connecticut) as an incubator of startups and opportunity.”
an IPO or other source. In addition to the Dublin jobs, the company lists 15 open positions in Stamford; about twice that number in Austin, Texas, where it has a development site; and a few handfuls more in New York City and Mountain View, Calif. Forster said Stamford has been a great place for the company’s headquarters, giving it access to talent not just in Fairfield County but in New York City and Westchester County as well. With the JOBS Act giving companies additional room to grow, the hope is they can go public when they are ready. “How steep do we want to make that hill to climb to get access to capital?” said Jeff Evans, head of equity capital markets at UBS AG. “We see many companies that are close to or thinking about or recently public companies, that have an awful lot of time spent around the tracking of requirements around (being) a public company. One of the great things about the JOBS Act is that it starts to sort of smooth that transition out and doesn’t cause a wall to have to be scaled to get to the public markets.”
THE WEEKLY LIST IS NOW AVAILABLE BY DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTION. Go to westfaironline.com/buy/the-lists/ for more information and to view a sample. 6 Week of June 4, 2012 • Fairfield County Business Journal a division of Westfair Business Publications • www.westfaironline.com