InStep NanoPower LLC
www.instepnanopower.com
SBDC Assistance Empowers Scientist to Start Business
Turning an idea into a product was nothing new to Tom Krupenkin. Starting a business was. That’s why the UW-Madison Small Business Development Center (SBDC) helped this UW Engineering Professor start InStep NanoPower LLC in order to commercialize an energy harvesting technology that he developed. “What I found useful about the program that SBDC offers is that it gives a broad overview and useful examples of how commercialization can be done and what the success stories look like,” says Krupenkin.
After the course, Krupenkin received additional counseling from course instructor Jack Reiners. “The course gave me initial knowledge of how to do things, but I did not have specifics of how to do that in my particular case. Being able to talk to Jack and draw from his experience was and is very useful.”
Technology with Unique Application
One application of Krupenkin’s technology is to harvest energy from human locomotion through a device placed in footwear. “We invented a method that is uniquely appropriate for this type of motion - this type of force and displacement,” explains Krupenkin. “That should be important not only from a scientific standpoint but very useful for commercialization.”
Krupenkin stresses that his core technology is an energy harvesting enabling technology with a large variety of uses. The capture of energy generated by human locomotion is just one application, though it may be the most marketable to both a consumer market and a military/law enforcement market.
SBIR Grant from NSF Funds Proof of Concept
Fellow scientist J. Ashley Taylor joined Krupenkin last year to set up the company, which recently received a $150,000 Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Science Foundation. Before he started his company, Krupenkin took a SBDC course on commercialization. The SBIR grant dollars will fund the proof of concept phase, notes Krupenkin. “So now I am building a device that will demonstrate that the technology works and can be used to power some type of useful load like a cell phone for instance. “
The SBIR Phase II funding would occur in 2011 “It is most important for us now to develop good connections with strategic partners, organizations and companies which have experience and products or potential products that can benefit from our technology,” says Krupenkin. “That is the focus of our commercialization effort right now”
Early-Stage Employment
InStep currently employs two people but will hire additional employees as it nears commercialization. “We hope at some point next year to travel the road from the proof of principle demonstration to product prototype development,” says Krupenkin. “At that point we will be able to generate enough interest from the investment community and the industrial community to partner with appropriate people to grow the company and have additional engineers working on the prototype.”
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