Incubation Mission : The CASE Center incubator looks to attract and assist start-up or young technology companies, with long-term potential for high growth of revenues and profits. These technology companies are nurtured to the point where they become ready for venture capital or other investment, and thus graduate from the incubator to more conventional business facilities.

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The CASE Center incubator program looks to attract and assist start-up or young technology companies, with long-term potential for high growth of revenues and profits. The incubators benefit from a rich intellectual and research environment, access to talented faculty and students, modern office facilities, and many networked computing resources that are essential to young start-up companies. These technology companies are nurtured to the point where they become ready for venture capital or other investment, and thus "graduate" from the incubator to more conventional business facilities.

Incubation Admissions Guidelines
(Subject to change at the discretion of CASE Management)

• An Admissions Committee will evaluate all applicants and make recommendations to the Center Director. These guidelines notwithstanding, the final decision rests with the CASE Center Director at his/her sole discretion. All decisions are final.
• Admission requires submission of a Business Plan.
• Companies must fit within the CASE focus areas of High-Assurance Software and Systems/Information Assurance, Distributed Networking and Data Mining, and Wireless Telecommunications. This focus area should be a primary component of the business model. The mere existence of a "computer application" as an adjunct to a business structure is not sufficient to meet this guideline.
• CASE companies should be poised to compete in large markets with substantial growth potentia
• CASE companies should evidence the potential to attract significant capital investment beyond that provided by the principals or relatives and friends
• Applicants should provide evidence of management capability. While companies may enter the Center without a complete management team in place, the Business Plan should address any gaps in the management team that the company recognizes it will need to fill as business milestones are attained.
• Companies must be willing to abide by CASE requirements for regular milestone assessment and graduation.
• Applicants should show the potential to provide meaningful economic impact numbers, which are required by CASE annually as a justification for its State funding. Companies accepted into the Center must be willing to provide such numbers to CASE in written form.
• CASE will not admit companies that directly compete against current incubation firms, to avoid conflicts of interest.
• Companies should be willing to provide evidence of capability to meet CASE's monthly licensing/affiliation fee requirements.
• There is a strong preference that CASE companies be primarily based upon a product development model. However, companies that are driven partially or primarily by a service provision model will be considered if they meet all of the other guidelines.

Re-evaluation

Companies that are tenants of the CASE Center incubator should understand that the Director might at any time choose to re-evaluate a firm's tenancy. Some of the reasons for this re-evaluation might be, but are not limited to:

• Lack of progress on the part of the company, towards its objectives as stated in its business plan.
• Change in the company's business focus that is no longer closely related to the CASE Center mission.
• Failure to pay affiliation fees in a timely manner.
• Unwillingness to abide by "good neighbor" or community guidelines of the incubator facility.
• Company's tenancy has surpassed a length of time usually associated with "incubation." While there is no specific time limit, firms should typically be able to move on within two to three years.