Iowa AgriTech Accelerator

A 2018 Foundation strategic goal is to leverage the public launch of ExpresSeed to find genetic detection technology spinout partners.  Many of these will be in the Ag industry, be it horizontally within the seed industry beyond crop seeds or vertically in areas such as forestry, aquiculture, and cattle.

​Another Foundation goal is to create strategic alliances with regional partners to enhance the intake of non-Simpson ventures being incubated, seed capital fund partners, and other private/community college academic programs seeking to collaborate on the Foundation's seed capital fund.

​Leadership at the Iowa AgriTech Accelerator in Des Moines and The Emerge Foundation are actively exploring how to compliment programming.  Strengths of the EMERGE@Simpson program are the DNP123 core and genetic detection technologies,  proof of concept development, and team formation.  The Accelerator takes ventures to the next level by being in a 3-month cohort.  The Foundation will be able to provide its affiliated ventures co-leadership for seed capital funding (the Accelerator also has a fund) and supporting ventures' second-stage growth after their exit from the cohort.

​ExpresSeed is not yet a cohort candidate due to an Accelerator requirement to have a full-time founder.  However, the Accelerator is now seeking to extend their services beyond cohorts-only and are hosting a trial March 23 event to introduce their staff, mentor teams, and investors to outside ventures.  ExpresSeed and Visium will be attending with Foundation leadership.