New Jersey is home to more than five dozen collaborative workspaces—incubators, accelerators and co-working spaces. Research has shown that startups nurtured in a collaborative workspace are more likely to succeed than unassisted enterprises.
As the state’s principal agency for driving economic growth, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) understands that startups often face challenges finding affordable lab and office space. One way we have addressed this challenge is through the creation of the NJ Ignite program, which provides rent support to startups moving into collaborative workspaces.
This helps Garden State innovators preserve precious capital for product development, connecting with investors, creating jobs, commercializing and marketing their products and services, and everything else it takes to successfully grow and prosper here.
Specifically, NJ Ignite provides up to nine months of rent support for startup technology and life sciences businesses that are moving to an approved collaborative workspace. As a means of fostering collaboration and networking among tenants and other entrepreneurs, the collaborative workspaces are required to host a minimum of eight innovation-ecosystem-building events per year, such as meetups, guest speakers, and office hours with lawyers, accountants, consultants, or other business services professionals.
Many NJ Ignite participants, including VentureLink at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, the Rutgers EcoComplex, the Rutgers Food Innovation Center, and the South Jersey Technology Park at Rowan University, are affiliated with world-class New Jersey universities.
Collaborative workspaces linked to higher-education connections can offer tenants access to university faculty and students and their research, development, and commercialization expertise. Often tenant companies end up hiring these same university students and graduates as interns or employees.
To learn more about the NJ Ignite Program and how it can help your startup grow, please visit www.njeda.com/njignite
Strategically situated in the heart of the state’s research corridor between Rutgers and Princeton universities, the NJEDA’s New Jersey Bioscience Center campus offers a multitude of lab and office space options for companies at all stages of growth. Our Incubator and Step-Out Labs provide lab space and a suite of amenities and resources for young, emerging biotechnology businesses.
NJ Bioscience Center – Incubator
The NJ Bioscience Center – Incubator at North Brunswick offers 27 wet labs, the most of any life sciences incubator in New Jersey, and is currently home to nearly two-dozen early-stage businesses undertaking groundbreaking research.
Additionally, it provides tenant companies with educational programs and a host of supporting resources, including assistance identifying funding sources and access to small business development resources, networking opportunities, and administrative support. The NJ Bioscience Center – Incubator at North Brunswick also offers discounted first-year rent for university spinouts.
NJ Bioscience Center – Incubator at North Brunswick was the launching pad of several highly successful global enterprises including GENEWIZ and Amicus Therapeutics.
NJ Bioscience Center – Step Out Labs at North Brunswick
Located across the parking lot from the NJ Bioscience Center – Incubator, the NJ Bioscience Center – Step Out Labs at North Brunswick is an accelerator that opened in June 2018. It offers intermediate lab and office space for companies that have outgrown incubator space and other early-stage companies looking to expand.
The NJ Bioscience Center – Step Out Labs space targets all subsectors of the biotechnology industry, with the goal of serving graduates of the NJ Bioscience Center – Incubator and other well-funded startups that are ready for intermediate space. The NJ Bioscience Center – Step Out Labs currently has six tenants, including China-based Adlai Nortye, which uses our North Brunswick campus as its United States headquarters.
