Innovation Pipeline

Out among the stoic mesas of New Mexico, there are a few tech startups beating the odds and coming of age. New Mexico is not known for its robust startup environment but it does have perhaps the highest concentration of doctorate-degree workers in the United States–and some impressive innovation.

That intellectual capital has helped power startups, some of which have been spun off from Los Alamos National Labs and Sandia National Labs.

That’s the case with Motivity. The Santa Fe-based startup is working on an automated software product designed with innovations unearthed by neuroscience researchers. That deep technology should not surprise, as the company’s chief technology officer is D. Hywel White, who prior to his work with Motivity was a nuclear-physics researcher.

Also taking a page from the lab book is startup Civa. Its business-analytics and disaster-planning software is called EpiCast. The software is used for modeling patterns of pandemics. It too has roots in the Los Alamos National Labs, where two of its employees worked previously.

Similarly innovative, startup Acoustic Cytometry Systems is doing business in the life-sciences market. The company’s product is a novel flow-cytometry system, which uses acoustic waves to improve the diagnostic precision of characterizing cells. This ability to analyze cells is a critical tool for the biotech market.

All three startups were spotlighted at a recent New Mexico Equity Capital Symposium held in Albuquerque.

Challenges for these startups are greater than those facing many young companies. While New Mexico is rich in intellectual talent, it lacks the market infrastructure and management talent common to areas like Silicon Valley and Boston. No doubt there’s inspiration enough to overcome those hurdles and a staying power implied by those the aged and weathered buttes. By Lee Bruno.