By MICHELE F. MIHALJEVICH

Indiana Correspondent

FORT WAYNE, Ind. — Indiana has made strides in developing an entrepreneur-friendly business environment for agbioscience, but still lags in certain key areas, according to a study commissioned by AgriNovus Indiana.

Officials with AgriNovus – charged with promoting and accelerating the growth of agbioscience in the state – discussed the report April 11 in Fort Wayne. The study considered several factors, including availability of capital, talent, market access, and specialized infrastructure.

“Indiana has pretty decent support in terms of capital,” noted Dan Dawes, AgriNovus senior director of strategy and innovation. “A number of studies have shown talent is the most important factor in startup companies. It’s important to help entrepreneurs identify access and succeed in new markets. Specialized infrastructure would include unique meeting spaces.”

Regulatory and government support, such as the ability to cut red tape and promote flexibility, is also a key, he said.

The study’s authors found Indiana’s entrepreneurial ecosystem to be strong and legitimate, Dawes noted. “There is a commitment to entrepreneurship from all levels of government. There’s a strong entrepreneur-friendly business environment and varied sources of technology and innovation.”

The report said the state still has some work to do. Indiana is behind in some key entrepreneurship benchmarks. “We need additional access to more targeted sources of capital,” he explained. “We have emerging – but still nascent – entrepreneur networks outside of Indianapolis.”

Four strategies included in the report should help AgriNovus build a stronger entrepreneurial ecosystem, he said. The study recommends building the pipeline of agbioscience in the state and accelerating agbioscience entrepreneurs. It also suggests connecting agbioscience entrepreneurs to existing resources and developing new resources targeted to the unique needs of agbioscience entrepreneurs.

To achieve these goals, AgriNovus is hoping to convene monthly statewide meetings with consistent times and locations. The organization also wants to accelerate entrepreneurs by helping new ventures grow and prosper.

It is planning for Innovation Challenges and Showcases, including an April 23 Showcase in Indianapolis. The event will offer entrepreneurs with agbioscience startups an opportunity to present their technology, products, and services.

AgriNovus has already begun working on these ideas, Dawes said. Two other strategies – looking for new sources of capital and establishing a clearinghouse for high growth companies to find and use business development services – will probably take longer to get started.

To achieve success, Indiana and northeastern Indiana specifically shouldn’t replicate what other cities and states have done, noted Sonia Nofziger Dasgupta, vice president of commercial strategy for EnviroKure, Inc. “We are unique in northeast Indiana,” she said. “If we do what they did, it won’t get us to where they are.”

EnviroKure – a manufacturer of biofertilizers and biostimulants – announced last year it would build a production facility in Bluffton.

“There’s an opportunity to build a pre-seed network here,” Dasgupta said. “There is money in northeast Indiana, but they don’t always understand agriculture. They don’t understand the seasonality of it.”

The region doesn’t have the big vision necessary to make some of the stated goals easy to achieve, said Crystal Vann Wallstrom, managing director of innovation for Electric Works, a proposed revitalization project at the former General Electric facility in Fort Wayne.

“We need more people and we need more money,” she noted. “With that money comes a willingness to lose it. They have to embrace risk and embrace failure. We may not always get it right the first time.”