When Lockheed Martin Corporation founded Technology Ventures Corporation in 1993 as part of its successful proposal to manage the Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories, the challenge was clear: Facilitate the commercialization of technologies developed in national laboratories and research universities to create thriving companies and good jobs in New Mexico. How to make this happen was, of course, quite another matter. The road between esoteric technologies and practical applications resulting in jobs isn’t a straight line and the roadmap didn’t exist. TVC created its own through trial, error, sagacity and professionalism.
As a result, between 1993 and 2002, TVC figured prominently in the production of more than $300 million in capital investments, more than 55 new high-tech companies and more than 5,600 new jobs. And, in so doing, TVC blazed a new trail by developing an effective and unique technology commercialization model.
Nationally, one in a thousand entrepreneurs seeking early stage equity investment receives it. Of the entrepreneurs who have worked with TVC and presented in a TVC symposium, about one in three has received funding. That record is similarly unique.
The model has been so successful that in 2002 the company received a congressional appropriation to extend its broad array of services in technology commercialization to California and Nevada where it opened offices to work closely with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Sandia California and the Nevada Test Site. It also established offices in Los Alamos and Santa Fe where it works with Los Alamos National Laboratory and other research institutions. Most recently, TVC has opened an office on the campus of New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.