News

By Scott Meacham Srijita Dia Ghosh is living her dream of helping other people achieve theirs. Srijita Dia Ghosh, i2E’s newest venture advisor, was born and brought up in West Bengal, India. Her home city of Kolkata (Calcutta), along the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, is a packed city of millions. Her father isRead more

By Scott Meacham There is a real science to brewing beer, and there is real chemistry in the annual OKBio BrewFest returning to Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark October 21 from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. BrewFest showcases Oklahoma breweries, wineries and distilleries while boosting awareness of Oklahoma’s diverse bioscience industry represented by the Oklahoma Bioscience Association, theRead more

By Scott Meacham Success of Oklahoma ventures has given me renewed admiration for the entrepreneurs who built those companies. We have had multiple successful portfolio exits in recent years — including Selexys, WeGoLook, and Alkami (originally iThryv). Just this month, Spiers New Technologies (SNT) was acquired by Cox Mobility, a division of Cox Automotive, aRead more

By Scott Meacham The acquisition of Spiers New Technologies is the Oklahoma Innovation Model working at its very best. At i2E, we are in the business of commercializing new technologies. It’s exciting work, especially when we have the opportunity to connect with a new startup in the first year or two of its existence andRead more

By Scott Meacham The worst thing that happens to you may be the best thing for you. There is a quote attributed to humorist and philosopher Will Rogers that fits the experiences of the past year and a half (as Will might say) like a lasso around a steer. “The worst thing that happens toRead more

By Scott Meacham The story of MaxQ is an adventure story of entrepreneurship. This is an exciting time to be an entrepreneur in Oklahoma. Our state recently celebrated our first unicorn, proof-positive that what happens in Silicon Valley and the environs of MIT in Boston can also happen here. In the last few months, i2ERead more

By Scott Meacham Paycom has mastered the art of corporate innovation Corporate innovation is easy to talk about and difficult to achieve — especially as innovative young companies succeed and grow. If ever there was a U.S. company that has mastered the art of corporate innovation, it is Paycom. This Oklahoma company started as oneRead more

By Scott Meacham You have to teach people how to hold a hammer. In the information technology world, one of the great goals of design bears the moniker of “plug-and-play.” The idea is that new IT software or devices work perfectly as intended the minute they are installed or connected without any action or learningRead more

By Scott Meacham There is no monopoly on great ideas. Capital begats capital. That’s the drumbeat setting the cadence for the i2E Management Company, Inc. (iMCI). iMCI is a private for-profit investment and fund management firm operating as a wholly owned subsidiary of i2E. iMCI manages more than $90 million across five venture funds. TheRead more

Back to Newsletter By Scott Meacham ACT Tulsa is very intentional about creating an on-ramp to trust with founders who are Black and Brown. ACT Tulsa, the six-month cohort-driven accelerator program aimed at cultivating underestimated founders located in Tulsa and beyond, is up and running with its inaugural cohort of nine startup companies. The 17Read more

Back to Newsletter By Scott Meacham   ACT Tulsa is a one-of-a-kind accelerator program. There is considerable conversation and churn these days around the need for talent across the economy. Many industries are challenged with identifying and attracting candidates with the right skills and experience. Others are having a hard time finding applicants at all.Read more

Back to Newsletter By Scott Meacham A new organization in Tulsa is working to knock down the hurdles that are holding people back. There is something happening in Tulsa that everyone in this state who cares about job creation and innovation in Oklahoma needs to know about. It is called ACT Tulsa. It is aRead more

Back to Newsletter By Scott Meacham Oklahoma’s own Paycom’s culture of innovation sets it apart as an industry pacesetter. How many times in the last month have you or someone in your family clicked the shopping cart icon in the upper corner of an Amazon or some other ecommerce screen? For many of us, onlineRead more

By Scott Meacham Let’s raise our eyes and raise our goals Oklahoma. Christian Kanady is a fourth-generation Oklahoman. “My roots don’t touch any state besides this one,” he said. “Like most Oklahomans, I grew up steeped in this state’s sense of being both an underdog and a pioneer.” These days, Kanady is channeling that pioneeringRead more

Back to Newsletter By Scott Meacham Oklahoma lost a great one recently with the passing of Steve Prescott after a lengthy battle with cancer. About everyone who has ever picked up the newspaper or been active in Oklahoma City business and social circles knows Steve as the long-time leader of the Oklahoma Medical Research FoundationRead more

By Scott Meacham Oklahoma’s path of innovation is built upon the hereditary DNA of past entrepreneurs. Of the nearly 3 billion base pairs in the human genome, about 99 percent of them are the same in every human being — however, it is the sequence of these DNA pairs that makes each of us whoRead more

By Scott Meacham In building a startup pipeline, keep it simple. Occam’s razor (also known as the law of parsimony) is a principle attributed to William of Ockham, a Franciscan friar and philosopher born around 1288. William did not originate the problem-solving model named for him; however, he practiced it relentlessly. Plus he was aRead more

By Scott Meacham In entrepreneurship and venture investing, “what if” is the cornerstone of our industry. Entrepreneurship is built on promise and possibility—the willingness to imagine the unimaginable and take the risks to make it real. We all engage in the “what if” game. Oklahoma bought into “what if” in the late 1980s with theRead more

By Scott Meacham Since its creation in the late 1990s, i2E has had an exponential impact upon the state’s startup economy. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? This philosophical trope has been used from ancient times on down as a frame to debate cause and effect. In high tech entrepreneurship and venture capital,Read more

By Scott Meacham “Patient” capital is critical to success of Oklahoma startups. One of the most challenging aspects of entrepreneurship and venture investing is that it can take a long time to know for certain that something works. Getting people outside the industry to understand and endure the timeline has always been a challenge, neverRead more