At the start of this month, the new Mayo Clinic Business Acceleratorwas launched in downtown Rochester as a publicly-subsidized, low-cost space to nurture early start-up companies to help them grow into local job-generating firms.
Right now, the nine tenants with signed leases are paying a total of $3,000 a month, or $1.20 per square foot, for space in the 2,500-square-foot cluster of offices.
Three other tenants, including Zumbro Discoveryand The Social+Capital Partnership, are in talks that would add $1,500 a month and bring the per square foot total to $1.80.
Five tenants are leasing an office for a flat fee of $1,000 a month, and four others are paying $500 a month to reserve a workstation in the central area of the center. Both the office tenants and the workstation users also have access to use the Accelerator's conference room.
The Accelerator is located on the second floor of the city-owned Minnesota BioBusiness Centerat 221 First Ave. S.W.
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These businesses are leasing office space:
• Sanderling Venturesis a California investment firm focused on new life science companies.
• Evidentia Healthis a health care information technology company co-founded by a Mayo Clinicdoctor that delivers evidence-based knowledge to providers and patients.
• Resoundantis a medical technology company founded by Mayo Clinic that is commercializing Magnetic Resonance Elastography.
• Walker Reading Technologiesis a software firm founded by two Mayo Clinic doctors that focuses on real-time software tools that readers can use anywhere to improve their reading performance.
• Versant Venturesis a California venture capital firm that's very active in biotechnology.
These firms are paying for workstation space:
• Mayo Clinic Venturesis a division of Mayo Clinic that commercializes and licenses research and inventions created by the doctors and researchers.
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• Mayo Clinic Treasury Servicesis a unit of Mayo Clinic Financial Servicesthat manages the investment portfolios of Mayo Clinic and the Mayo Pension Fund. It is leasing two workstation spaces.
• VitalHealth Softwareis a company co-founded by Mayo Clinic that develops cloud-based eHealth solutions with an emphasis on chronic diseases.
• Elite Health Internationalis a consulting service fostering interaction between North American and Greater China health care companies.
Most of the other tenants of the Minnesota Biobusiness Center have leases that start with initial fees of between $14.75 per square to $17 per square foot, most of which then increase each year of the lease.
The Accelerator, which is joint effort by the City of Rochester, Mayo Clinic and Rochester Area Economic Development Inc., is less expensive to give start-ups that are looking for funding an affordable place to base their fledgling operations.
Mayo Clinic paid $100,000 toward the development of the Accelerator, the city is providing the space and RAEDI is handling the leasing and management.
The Rochester City Council also OK'ed using $100,000 in sales tax funding out of the $500,000 earmarked for RAEDI's use.
