Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | January 20, 2020 | Worcester Business Journal 17 Regional Real Estate? Our World of Knowledge Can Bridge the Gap Between a Great Idea and a Grand Opening. Knowing the ins and outs of commercial real estate requires not only know-how but also knowing who. Our knowledge of local and regional markets allows us to assist you with the how and the why, the when and where, always with an eye on the time, regardless of the size of your project. Because when you have all of the right information, you're assured of making an enlightened decision. Call Mark Donahue 508.459.8029 or Todd Brodeur 508.459.8038. Real Knowledge in Real Estate COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE | SPECIAL PERMITS SITE PLAN APPROVAL | MEPA FletcherTilton.com W O R C E S T E R | F R A M I N G H A M | B O S T O N | C A P E C O D Burns Bridge in Shrewsbury, MA. Photo by Jerry Callaghan WPI bulletproofing could create startup city I s Worcester a startup city? at's a question I've been thinking about for years. But what does that even mean? To answer it, I'll begin by defining what I mean by a startup: Rather than, say, a restaurant founded and run to employ family and friends, a startup is a small company aspiring to get big fast, with help from heaping dollops of venture capital. A startup city – the subject of my 14th book, "Startup Cities" – hosts many startups because venture capitalists have already made a financial killing there. In so doing, they've enriched themselves and the successful startup's founding team. And they hope to keep the momen- tum going there by plowing capital and talent back into the local startup soil. Silicon Valley – a region surrounding Stanford Uni- versity in California – is the world's most successful one. For years, the region's economy was quiet, featur- ing plenty of fruit orchards. But in 1925, aer earning his Ph.D. at MIT in Cambridge, Frederick Terman moved out to Stanford and rose to dean of its engineering department. Terman took a cue from MIT and helped two of his students – William Hewlett and David Packard – start Hew- lett Packard. Terman helped Hewlett turn his graduate thesis into a product: an audio oscillator Disney used in the movie "Fantasia." Ultimately, HP went public and became a source of talent for other companies, such as Apple. Common ingredients for a startup city are: capital, talented entrepreneurs, cutting edge ideas from universities. Worcester certainly has the cut- ting-edge ideas, but since I started writ- ing about it in September 2011, I tried but failed to find any venture-backed startups, based on technology devel- oped in Worcester, which have gone public and operate here. But here's an example of local cutting-edge technology conceivably achieving that potential outcome. A Worcester Polytechnic Institute professor is working on new materials with the potential to make bulletproof vests and other protective systems for people and structures more effective. e professor in question is Nikhil Karanjgaokar, assistant professor of aerospace engineering at WPI. He earned a Ph.D. in mechanical engi- neering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and spent two years as a post-doctoral researcher at the California Institute of Technology. In a November interview, Karanjgaokar explained bulletproof vests are designed to protect people from specific kinds of bullets under specific conditions. Some criminals know this and hack the vests by obtaining specific bullets – such as so-called cop killers – against which the bulletproof vests are ineffective. is "horses for courses" approach is used in protective surfaces like "per- sonal protective gear for police, military personnel and first responders, pro- tection systems for missile silos, shock absorption devices for structures to protect them from micro-pro- jectiles, shock absorption for electronic devices or sport equipment," he said. But Karanjgaokar has a better idea: Create a new kind of material able to change its internal structure as it is being struck by a projectile. If such a material could be designed, built, and deployed to the people and structures needing protecting, the world would be safer. What's more, Karanjgaokar would be tapping into some large markets. According to San Francisco market intelligence provider Grand View Research, the global body armor market alone was $2.1 billion in 2018 and is expected to expand at a 5.5 annual rate from 2019 to 2025. Demand is coming from emerging economies such as India and China, which are replacing legacy equipment. His work could be useful for the shock absorption applications he described above. Since he shares ownership of this technology with WPI, it could be the basis of a company making and selling a specific product or licensing it to others. Much would need to happen for Karanjgaokar's technology to turn into a successful venture-backed public company. He'd need to develop the technology into a product consistently delivering on its promise; hire an exec- utive team to raise capital and build a company to make and sell the product; and ultimately, the company would need to grow to, say, $100 million in revenue. At that point, it could probably go public and put Worcester on the path to becoming a startup city. Peter S. Cohan of Marlborough heads a management consulting and venture capital firm, and teaches business strategy and entrepreneurship at Babson College. His email address is peter@petercohan.com. Starting Up BY PETER S. COHAN W

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