August 7, 2006

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E-Zone generates $29.4 million

MONDAY, AUGUST 7, 2006 THE POST 2A

CITY EDITOR: (859) 292-2600 m FAX: (859) 291-2525

Northern Kentucky E-Zone, a business accelerator and incubator, has generated $29.4 million in business investments in Northern Kentucky since the nonprofit organization was founded five years ago, according to the group’s annual report.

“We are five years and thriving, and the next five years promise a much bigger impact than the first five years,” said Casey Barach, E-Zone’s executive director.

E-Zone has had a $66 million incremental impact on Northern Kentucky’s economy, said Northern Kentucky University economist Lynn Burbridge. Since its founding in 2001, E-Zone has assessed 335 companies that have expressed an interest in its help, including 55 in the past year, and 82 companies, including 25 in the past year, have signed on.

Fifty-two companies remain as active participants, including 17 added in the last year, and 378 jobs have been created by those firms, up from 280 a year ago.

E-Zone gives advice to start-up companies and helps find investors and government grants for the firms.

E-Zone officials said that after two years of lobbying, they succeeded in getting the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education to change eligibility requirements of the Kentucky Enterprise Fund.

As a result, Boone, Campbell and Kenton counties were declared “rural” and companies in those three counties became eligible for rural funds. Last year, E-Zone secured $535,000 in grants for local companies and projects in the region, a mammoth increase over the previous year’s total of $15,000.

E-Zone companies currently have $625,000 in potential additional grants under review. “Our role is to assist clients who are high-potential entrepreneurial companies and give them a voice which will help us all build a better entrepreneurial culture,” said Barach.

“By building a better entrepreneurial infrastructure, we are helping to share the vision of a greater entrepreneurial driven region.”

Barach said studies show that 70 percent of new jobs come from entrepreneurial activities. 

“Northern Kentucky can garner more than its fair share of these jobs if we prepare today,” he said.

For instance, Barach said the city of Covington’s $150,000 investment in the past year to support E-Zone helped EZone-assisted companies bring $645,000 in grant funds into the city. He also said Covington received more than $50,000 in payroll taxes from companies helped by E-Zone. To make things easier for startup firms, E-Zone is creating a “One-Stop Northern Kentucky Entrepreneur Center” to centralize resources for all entrepreneurs in nine Northern Kentucky counties.