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byline: Sarah King

Farmville SEED hub seeks to grow innovation

Luther Cifers launched fishing equipment company YakAttack LLC in 2009 out of his friend’s basement, and he moved to the garage to create prototypes of its gear. Now, he is putting in work so future entrepreneurs will have a dedicated space for their projects.

The Farmville SEED Innovation Hub, slated to open in late fall, is a 10,000-square-foot business accelerator and training space that would replace a vacant Barnes & Noble book store in Midtown Square. Construction is pending approval from the U.S. Economic Development Administration to move forward with bidding.

“My vision for this thing is something that would have been useful for us in the early days,” says Cifers, whose background is in engineering and design.

A partnership between Longwood University and Hampden-Sydney College, SEED sprouted from a collaboration between Longwood’s Office of Economic and Community Development, GO Virginia and Mid-Atlantic Broadband Inc. on an entrepreneurship and innovation investment strategy in 2019. It is funded with $1.9 million from the federal American Rescue Plan Act, $674,304 from GO Virginia, $500,000 from the Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission and $375,000 from the Longwood Real Estate Foundation. The hub is expected to create 60 jobs, retain 159 jobs and generate about $5 million in private investment.

One of the gaps the groups identified in the region was the availability of entrepreneurial spaces that have makerspace capabilities, innovation labs and “tools and resources for everyone K through 12, on up to collegiate and community,” says Sheri McGuire, executive director of Longwood’s Small Business Development Center.

Among the hub’s offerings will be 3-D printers, entrepreneurial bootcamps, pitch competitions and idea summits. Other details, including how Cifers plans to help, are still in the works.

Farmville’s hub also will complement South Boston’s SOVA Innovation Hub, which opened in 2020 and offers a co-working space and has a makerspace in preliminary planning stages. Both facilities represent a change in the regions’ economic focus.

“If Southern Virginia is going to transform its economy and create wealth [and] create household income, it has to look to other ways of creating opportunity,” says Bryan David, program director of GO Virginia Region 3, which spans 13 counties and includes Danville and Martinsville. “Entrepreneurship is, frankly, one of those ways that a lot of rural regions have found success.”

Fort Monroe development moving forward

Apartments, a 250-person event center, a boutique hotel, a 500-seat restaurant, a marina and a firing range will soon dot the landscape at Fort Monroe with the help of historic tax credits, public funds and private investment.

Hanover County-based Echelon Resources Inc. was named master developer by the Fort Monroe Authority for four concurrent parcels. The first two are in the design stage and will be converted into 65,000 square feet of apartments, with flexibility for commercial use, according to owner Edwin Gaskin, who is hopeful construction will begin in 2023. Gaskin estimates the four parcels will eventually include 250 to 300 apartments.

Smithfield-based Pack Brothers Hospitality LLC is investing $45 million to build a marina, renovate two existing historic buildings into conference space and a restaurant and hotel over the water, akin to its Smithfield Station development. The new development will be called 37 North at Fort Monroe.

“With both of these developers, we wanted to focus on an understanding that the sites would be developed as part of Fort Monroe — and not become an island within an island — and both Echelon and Pack Brothers embrace that concept,” FMA Executive Director Glenn Oder explains, stressing the mixed-use focus of the 565 acres comprising Fort Monroe, a national historic landmark and former Army installation decommissioned in 2011.

The marina will accommodate 300 slips, spaces for super yachts, a pool and possibly a boardwalk connecting to the fort’s 7-mile trail along Fenwick Road. Pack Brothers Principal Randy Pack says construction could start in fall 2024. The marina and restaurant are anticipated to open in fall 2025. The hotel and conference center, in the third phase, would be completed 12 to 18 months later, Pack says.

The former post’s commissary, which has sat vacant for years, will be a new firing range and training facility for Hampton Police and Joint Base Langley-Eustis officers, made possible through a $7.6 million Department of Defense grant coupled with $3.7 million from the city of Hampton, says Bruce Sturk, the city’s director of federal facilities. Fort Monroe is owned by the state and the National Park Service and managed by the authority and NPS.

In September 2022, NPS issued a request for proposals for the nearly 24,000-square-foot former Paradise Ocean Club, which has been vacant after unsuccessful lease negotiations with the former tenants.  

AWS boosts women-led startups

Nessle co-founder and CEO Carly Buxton and her chief technology officer have passed up salaries and dipped into their savings to keep the Richmond-based tech business running since its 2019 launch.

The Nessle platform connects new parents with real-time tailored support. To keep Nessle running, Buxton applied for grants and participated in two previous accelerators. Now, she hopes that Nessle’s inclusion in Amazon Web Services’ Impact Accelerator for Women Founders will provide the startup with a needed boost.

Nessle and Alexandria-based Cleare, which started out developing software to consolidate state and local daycare compliance regulations into an interactive dashboard, were among 25 women-led startups announced in September that won spots in the AWS accelerator’s second cohort. More than 1,200 companies applied. The accelerator’s first cohort, announced in June, focused on Black founders; the third cohort, for LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs, will be announced in early 2023.

For the second cohort, companies had to be more than 51% women-led, with a CEO and CTO. They must also have a launched or fully developed product, be fewer than 5 years old and have raised no more than $500,000 from investors. Participants receive $125,000 cash and $100,000 in credits for AWS’ cloud computing platform.

The accelerator began Oct. 3 in Seattle with a week of training for CEOs and CTOs on topics including customer growth, product road mapping and storytelling.

It culminates in an investor pitch event Dec. 9 in San Francisco. In between, the cohort participated in remote workshops two to three times a week for up to six hours. Businesses also heard from investors and successful company founders and were matched with technical and business mentors. They also can book time with other experts.

Through the accelerator, Buxton has been able to work on upping Nessle’s game in cybersecurity, branding and social media, and pitching to investors. “We’re [also] really exploring … trying to develop a partnership playbook and what that looks like for us,” Buxton says. 

Cleare co-founder and CEO Tisia X.V. Saffold started her company with the goal of expanding the platform to assist other industries beyond child care. AWS’ accelerator has allowed Cleare to test and build its product. Saffold says it also sharpened her thinking about her customers, their behaviors and her go-to-market strategies.

“It really has just given us a lot of cushion to be able to spread our wings,” Saffold says