“Our tech evokes a new sense of imagination and possibility,” says CEO and founder Schuyler Van Sickle.
The Beck Venture Center Creates an Entrepreneurship Hub at Colorado School of Mines
John Himes
October 15, 2024
Colorado’s newest startup incubator recently opened its doors on the campus of the state’s oldest public institution of higher learning.
Less than one year in, it’s already home to innovators working to commercialize technologies ranging from moon mining hardware to carbon-negative concrete.
While the Colorado School of Mines community has been specializing in engineering and technology since 1874, previous generations of entrepreneurial graduates had to migrate to the coasts and link up with business-minded cofounders if they wanted to commercialize their innovations.
Now, with the support of the Beck Venture Center, Mines is becoming a place where engineering breakthroughs aren’t just created. Thanks to the resources, team, venture fund, and greater ecosystem developing around Beck, technologists can bring their inventions to market from their home base in Golden, Colorado.
“We’re planting a flag. Golden is another node in the Colorado startup ecosystem,” says Zack Bennett, Director at Beck. “It’s not just Boulder and Denver anymore. We’ve upped the stakes and are putting Golden on the map.”
How the Beck Venture Center serves the local tech startup community
Innovation is nothing new to the Colorado School of Mines. Generations of scientists and engineers have created amazing IP in everything from critical minerals processing to energy transition to novel biomaterials. The school has continued to push the envelope with new degrees in space resources—the first program of its kind—and quantum engineering.
The problem, explains Bennett, is that “too often that tech is sitting on a shelf in a lab because the researcher doesn’t know how to commercialize it.” He and his team at Beck are on a mission to change that.
The Beck Venture Center isn’t just a 31,000-square-foot building with a coworking office, a cafe, and an event space. It’s not just a place to crack open a laptop and enjoy the view of North Table Mountain. “Beck is a place for entrepreneurs to come together for community,” says Bennett.
Founding a company is a hard and lonely road. By getting a bunch of founders under one roof, by providing them with resources, mentorship programs, a bench of trusted service providers, and even seed funding through the newly minted Mines Venture Fund, the Beck Venture Center is beginning to act as a nexus for tech entrepreneurship.
Events draw people in. Occasions like the Mines Innovation Showcase and the regularly scheduled Startup Forums educate founders and get the conversation flowing, building the one-on-one connections that are the foundation of a robust community. Free food and drinks certainly don’t hurt either!
“We’re thrilled to host a growing number of events at Beck,” says Jenny Goodheart, Community and Events Manager. “Our goal is to make Beck a central hub for the startup ecosystem in the front range, and we look forward to welcoming you to an event!”
Once people are in the door, Bennett and the team help them with everything from company formation to customer discovery to securing the first check that will help them get off the ground.
The Mines Venture Fund, run by Managing Director Todd McLean, is a fund that provides seed funding between $50K and $250K for Mines-affiliated startups.
“Beck is a place where bold ideas meet the courage to take risks,” says McLean. “We provide a nurturing environment where mentorship and industry connections empower entrepreneurs to learn, test, and make meaningful progress toward commercialization.”
The inside story: The Beck Venture Center comes to life
Our story starts in 2020 with a generous donation from Mike and Kelly Beck, the parents of two Mines alumni. They saw the potential sitting in the halls and labs at Mines, and they wanted to encourage students “to transform their best science and engineering into new commercial ventures,” says Mike Beck.
As the construction crews broke ground—and, in true Mines style, even drilled geothermal wells to power the boilers—the team started coming together.
Director Zack Bennett graduated from Mines in ’99. Drawn to tech entrepreneurship, he went out to Silicon Valley, plugged into the scene, and caught the bug. After spending some time in consulting and at large financial organizations like Visa and American Express, he couldn’t resist the founder’s call any longer.
“I founded a couple companies, and they crashed and burned,” he recounts. “I learned things the hard way.”
Like any good entrepreneur, Bennett treated these failures not as brick walls but as learning experiences. So when his third startup, a fintech company for energy transition commodities, took off like a rocket ship, he held on tight as they went from founding to IPO in four and a half years.
After taking some time off, writing a book, and moving back to Colorado during the pandemic, Bennett started getting involved in the local tech ecosystem: TechStars, Rocky Mountain Venture Club, Denver Startup Week, and the Entrepreneurship and Innovation folks at Mines.
When they offered him the job at Beck, he realized he had an amazing opportunity to help the next generation of Mines entrepreneurs. “I first walked up to Beck while it was still under construction,” says Bennett. “And I felt like a captain looking at his ship being built.”
The Beck Venture Center opened its doors in April 2024. Since then, Bennett has assembled a team, set the strategy and vision, and coordinated with the university to set a tempo that works for both a 150-year-old institution and the fast-paced startup world.
“I’ve loved activating and opening the building,” he says. “Now we’re getting to the fun part.”
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The Beck Venture Center at Colorado School of Mines: How it all fits together into the local tech ecosystem
As a startup incubator and accelerator, the Beck Venture Center needs to offer more than coworking space, access to capital, and mentorship. Economic development thrives on a network effect. Connecting with the larger Colorado startup ecosystem beyond the halls of Mines is key.
One great example is an ongoing collaboration with Elevate Quantum (EQ), the industry consortium that recently won $127M in government funding, unlocked $1B in private capital, and earned Colorado the designation of America’s quantum Tech Hub. As quantum technology transitions from pure science to practical engineering, Mines and the Beck Venture Center are at the forefront.
EQ’s board meetings happen at Beck. Together, Mines and EQ recently broke ground in Arvada on the Quantum COmmons, a quantum-focused business park with labs, offices, and advanced manufacturing space.
Relationships with state and local government are also key. For instance, Beck helps members apply for non-dilutive grant funding from the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade (OEDIT).
The National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) in Golden also has close ties to Beck. Of course, tons of cleantech and energy transition work is currently underway in the labs at both NREL and Mines. But this relationship is hardly limited to R&D collaboration.
Innovators at NREL’s West Gate program, which incubates sustainability tech startups, gain automatic membership to the Beck Venture Center. While they develop their tech down the street at NREL’s labs, these entrepreneurs can come to Beck for help with go-to-market and commercialization.
After spending most of his career in Silicon Valley and New York City, Bennett understands that, in order for Colorado to compete on the world stage, we need to support each other and tap into a greater ecosystem.
“There’s an incredible giving ethos in the community here. Colorado is a kinder and gentler place to build a company,” he concludes. “Startups are hard. It used to be not if you would leave the state but when. Now you can build from seed to IPO in Colorado.”
Want to get involved? Check out the event schedule and come on by!
About the Colorado Tech Spotlight
The Colorado Tech Spotlight highlights local innovations and the stories behind them. The series explores how the Colorado tech ecosystem creates an environment that promotes technological progress.
It is produced by Dynamic Tech Media and written by John Himes. Photography by Kort Duce.
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