From Surgical Lasers to Optics in Satellites to Prints at Walgreens, ATFilms is a Leader in High-End Precision Laser Optics

From high-end surgical lasers used in operating rooms, to the optics in satellites mapping the polar ice caps, to the processes Walgreens uses to print the pictures of your family’s trip to the Florida Keys, Advanced Thin Films has taken high-end precision laser optics to a new level of diversity and quality.
The Boulder, Colo.-based manufacturing [...]

iShoe in the running for Rice Business Plan prize

iShoe, which won 8th Continent’s 2008 Business Plan Competition, was featured in Fortune Small Business this week as a top contender for the Rice Business Plan Competition, which awards $800,000 in seed money to promising start-ups.
The team from Cambridge, Mass.,  captured our prize – then called the Lunar Ventures Business Plan Competition – by modifying  [...]

Do Investors Care What Your Business Plan Looks Like?

No less an authority than The Wall Street Journal says this: Venture capitalists don’t read business plans.
The same point was made by a quartet of entrepreneurs at Tuesday’s Rockies Venture Club meeting in Denver.
“Nobody will read your business plan,” said Jeffrey Saffer, co-founder of Quertle, a Web portal for biomedical research that must be doing [...]

Sorbet in Space!

Thanks to all who came out for the 8th Continent Project’s second anniversary party to celebrate launching several successful programs, including the 8C Chamber of Commerce, our incubator at the Boulder Innovation Center, and the redesigned 8CProject.com.
We put rocket fuel (liquid nitrogen) to some interesting new uses at the party, as Chef Ian Kleinman of [...]

8th Continent Chamber Focus: DigitalGlobe

DigitalGlobe, a founding sponsor of the 8th Continent Project, plans to launch its third commercial remote sensing satellite, WorldView-2, in the third quarter of 2009.
Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp., which is building the WorldView-2 spacecraft, integrated its remote sensing instrument and has begun system-level testing of the satellite’s design integrity. ITT Corp.’s Space Systems Division [...]

8C Chamber Focus: Powerbeam Inc. and Wireless Electricity

Wireless electricity was the talk of CES 2009, the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. 8th Continent Chamber member Powerbeam fascinated a steady stream of visitors and journalists with its optical technology that beams power across an open space using a laser light source and an optical diode receiver. Powerbeam’s solution can deliver less than [...]

Should Stimulus $ Go to Startup Funding?

The News: In Sunday’s New York Times, Thomas Friedman sets off a flurry of commentary by suggesting that the U.S. Treasury should direct $20 billion to top VCs to invest in start-ups, a much more reliable job creation engine than General Motors or Bank of America. Other bloggers suggest that existing programs already do that [...]

Announcing the 8th Continent Chamber of Commerce

It’s the World’s First Extra-Terrestrial Chamber of Commerce! No, we’re not planning to hold ribbon-cuttings on Mars. But the 8th Continent Chamber of Commerce, launched Tuesday from the Center for Space Resources at the Colorado School of Mines, resembles its small-town counterparts in many key ways, while connecting ideas, entrepreneurs, talent and money around the [...]

8th Continent Incubator Enlists First Aerospace Business Tenant

Australian startup joins Colorado’s entrepreneurial ecosystem

flaik, an Australian startup company whose satellite-based social location technology helps skiers track their vertical performance and resorts track ski school students, is the first tenant to join the 8th Continent Aerospace Business Incubator.
“The 8th Continent Incubator’s mission is to support ‘Space 2.0’ startups as actual operating companies that [...]

Colorado’s First Aerospace Business Incubator Opens Doors

Last week, the nation’s first aerospace business incubator officially opened its doors at the Colorado School of Mines.
With primary funding from the Colorado Economic Development Commission, the 8th Continent Aerospace Business Incubator is a virtual home for entrepreneurial companies that turn innovations from the Space Program and defense industries into profitable businesses and investment opportunities.
Colorado [...]