Economic opportunities for NM technology

Editor’s Note: New Mexico Angels members, investors and startup owners provide occasional columns on economic development and startup opportunities in the state. Angel individual investors pool their resources and provide seed and early stage capital to start-up companies.

When I moved to New Mexico 30 years ago, Albuquerque had a vibrant tech industry.

Some of the biggest names in electronics moved up and down the Rio Grande Valley. Over time, a combination of events—including the dot-com crash and the decline in technology investment—caused many of these companies to leave or close. Now, few people remember New Mexico as a former tech hub.

But this may change in the coming years. Two projects announced by the Department of Energy and led by Sandia National Laboratories have Mexico’s business leaders, entrepreneurs and investors beating the drumbeat for plans to rebuild the state’s tech industry.

With a total federal investment of more than $8 million and matching funding from partners over the next three years, the two projects will have a direct impact on New Mexico, helping local small businesses in clean energy technology become a cornerstone of our state’s economy. Payment, domestic, advanced manufacturing operations in the process.

I manage the team at Sandia Labs while leading these two efforts. In my 25 years of experience working in partnership between Sandia and businesses, I have never seen a series of opportunities as transformative for New Mexico as we are experiencing now.

The Energy Department’s initiatives align with the CHIPS and SCIENCE Act — a federal law signed in August to promote domestic semiconductor manufacturing, research and development of new technologies, and workforce training — and the American Frontier Fund, which announced plans to create a new venture fund. Widely in New Mexico.

Collaboration will be key to rebuilding the state’s tech economy. The first project Sandia is leading, which we call the C-4 partnership model, is support for a new 100,000-square-foot technology incubator in New Mexico. This will be a high-tech, joint manufacturing facility where companies, academia and national laboratories will come together to conduct research and produce cutting-edge materials and advanced manufacturing solutions. These developments will help address some of our nation’s most pressing climate and energy challenges.

The second project, which we call the BOOST platform, will focus on identifying and removing systemic barriers by partnering with various startups and national labs. Research consistently shows that only a fraction of venture capital funding goes to women and small startup founders. This national disparity hits states like New Mexico hard, making it especially difficult for the many creators who live here to compete in the marketplace. Collaboration with national laboratories can be one source of support to alleviate this imbalance.

Our ecosystem benefits greatly from early stage development from the State Investment Council and groups like New Mexico Angels, which are looking to invest in technology transfer. Our goal is to add value to this community by increasing the number of local spin-outs around DOE laboratory technologies and creating a platform for laboratories and the venture community to collaborate.

To help these projects succeed, Sandia needs the voices and vision of entrepreneurs in our beautiful, innovative state. We will be organizing community meetings in the future to listen to the needs of different startups. In the meantime, I invite members of the New Mexico business and investment community to email me their ideas at partnerships@sandia.gov. Or, talk to us in person at the Coworking and Business Center located in the Lobo Rainforest Building at 101 Broadway NE in Downtown Albuquerque. Check-ins are welcome.

I am personally excited about these opportunities, but as a community we must seize the moment. This influx of federal dollars is just the seed fund to start a new independent economy. It may be decades before we get another chance like this.