Adams Hub in Carson City working on diversifying economy

The Adams Hub for Innovation, and its new space The Studio, are working to diversify Carson City’s economy.

Steve Neighbors, trustee, Hop & Mae Adams Foundation, which founded the downtown business incubator, said Carson City suffers from being a government town in which many workers live elsewhere.

“We’re trying to change the mix of the economy and one way to do that is through the Adams Hub,” said Neighbors.

The incubator currently has 13 clients, a mix of dedicated office, virtual and coworkers, who receive a package of services depending on their level of membership, and 41 mentors.

In 2016, the Hub held two, five-week intensive pre-accelerator programs led by mentor Kevin Lyons, one starting in May for four start-ups and a second starting in October attended by five burgeoning companies with a product to launch.

The next program will be held in January with between four to six startups and another, more intensive version where participants meet every day, may be launched this summer.

In 2016, a chapter of Entrepreneurs Assembly was started. The group, which includes a mix of about 25 entrepreneurs and advisors, meets at The Studio every second Wednesday of the month from 5:30-8:30 p.m. starting in January.

So far, one startup has graduated: Talintel, a developer of a home health aide application, which moved its operations to Reno.

Another client, BaseVenture, has received two rounds of funding from Battle Born Fund.

The startup developed FundManager.io, a cloud-based application for managing and administrating financial funds.

“We’re looking at companies that scale,” said Miya MacKenzie, chief professional officer. “We’re trying to create a spirit of entrepreneurship because people who work for startups go onto create more startups.”