The Warehouse business accelerator hires Kelly Peters as first executive director of nonprofit

By: InnovatioNews Tuesday March 31, 2015 Tags: Economic Gardening, Innosphere, Jay Dokter, Kelly Peters, Loveland, The Warehouse

 


LOVELAND -- The Warehouse Business Accelerator, a public-private regionally supported economic development engine, has appointed Kelly Peters as leader and executive director for the organization.

Peters begins her new role April 1 and brings to the Accelerator more than 15 years of regional economic development experience that includes former leadership of the Loveland Small Business Center, leadership formation of the Rocky Mountain Innosphere, a founding national consultant for Economic Gardening and most recently VP of the Northern Colorado Economic Development Corporation.

She also facilitated the Northern Colorado Bioscience Association as well as the GIS/Software cluster.

"We are excited to have Kelly join our team and lead our initiative," said Jay Dokter, Warehouse founder and chair. "Kelly has the right skill-mix, working network, and experience needed to pursue our purpose of creating primary jobs and to be a supporting driver for our local and regional economy."

"The Warehouse program is distinctly different from other business incubator programs because of the maturity of the companies it serves," Dokter said. "Companies enabled by The Warehouse are typically graduates from the incubator phase. They have a tested product and are ready to "scale up" to bring their product to market, generate revenue and hire employees."

"The failure rate of companies moving from Stage I to Stage II is notoriously high," said Peters. "So much so that this phase of business development is often termed the "valley of death" by businesses analysts. However, the fledgling organizations that survive this phase are primary drivers of economic growth and creators of jobs. The Warehouse program is based on the belief that, by carefully selecting Stage II companies and focusing our energy on helping them to access needed resources, we can improve their chances for success."

Dokter said The Warehouse's founders have been working alongside many of the existing entrepreneurial support entities in order to build out a missing piece of the regional ecosystem in Northern Colorado. Collaboration, a regional footprint, local, state, international sources of capital and tech industry cluster development are all ingredients to The Warehouse's success, Dokter said.

The Warehouse's primary funding source comes from the Loveland Development Fund (LDF) with collaboration and support from the City of Loveland and other organizations. The Warehouse provides select incubator graduates and Stage II companies access to an integrated regional ecosystem. This includes expert advice, capital, supply chain partners, research resources, market connections, and physical resources for the purpose of accelerating their revenue growth, scale-up, and growth of primary jobs.

The Warehouse is a 501(c)3 nonprofit and is eligible to receive funding through sponsorship, in-kind donations, grants and government sources.

The Loveland Development Fund (LDF) is an organization comprised of Loveland business leaders interested in promoting and supporting business growth and opportunity within the city that provides high quality employment opportunities for current and future citizens.