PARC CEO Keynotes AlwaysOn Venture Summit, Demonstrates Commitment to Accelerating Time to Market for Startups

Half Moon Bay, California — PARC, a Xerox company, today advanced its commitment to startups by going beyond typical entrepreneur-in-residence and spin-out models. In his keynote presentation at the AlwaysOn Venture Summit Silicon Valley 2011, PARC CEO Stephen Hoover highlighted different ways the startup community – from entrepreneurs to venture capitalists and other key referral partners in Silicon Valley and beyond – can work with PARC to significantly speed time to market and reduce risk.

Startups already have access to talent, coaching, and funding from VCs to angels and accelerators – what’s missing is access to capital-intensive infrastructure or specialized expertise not typically available to smaller companies. This is where PARC’s open innovation services come in, by creating new business options, co-developing custom technology, and especially augmenting internal capabilities.

PARC has already played a fundamental role in seeding the Silicon Valley technology and startup ecosystem (partial list here); just today, PARC spin-out PowerCloud Systems, the leading software platform provider for enabling Networking as a Service (NaaS), announced a $6 million Series B financing round led by Qualcomm via its venture investment arm, Qualcomm Ventures.

However, there are many other vital ways startups are working with PARC to accelerate time to market and increase their competitive edge. PARC lets startups access:

Strong background intellectual property (IP) and deep, diverse expertise “reduced to practice” for commercial contexts This goes beyond just patents, to scalable architectures and prototypes that account for industry constraints. For example, natural language consumer search engine Powerset relied on PARC not just for its core technology, but also for the ability to take a complex problem and translate it into a demonstration system that enabled Powerset to raise funding and attract key talent, before being acquired by Microsoft.

Infrastructure and services that would otherwise be unavailable to startups While PARC’s fabrication facilities, clean room, and MOVCD reactor enable rapid prototyping, startups have valued even more PARC’s industry experience and world-class researchers who are experts at addressing the roadblocks encountered when moving from concept to commercial scale. In just one example, bulk AlN substrates supplier HexaTech is working with PARC to gain our know-how and expertise in UVLEDs to move upstream towards more valuable devices.

Broader networks and funding options Startups can partner with PARC for government funding or access our extensive network to build partnerships along the value chain. For example, data center energy management startup Power Assure, which just closed its Series B funding last month, together with PARC applied for U.S. Department of Energy grants so Power Assure could expand its suite of products to meet its customers’ power virtualization needs. This partnership brought PARC’s multi-disciplinary research expertise to help Power Assure resolve the tradeoffs data center managers would otherwise be forced to make between cost savings and quality of service. The partnership helped ensure that Power Assure was 1 of 14 companies awarded $5 million government funding.

“At PARC, we are incredibly passionate about being in the business of breakthroughs for our clients. So our people are more than just technical experts: they combine that with their knowledge of fundamental customer needs and market opportunities,” said Stephen Hoover, CEO of PARC. “And our work with the startup community is an excellent example of our expertise and services moving innovation in the Valley forward even more quickly than before.”

To work with us, please contact us with your specific interest. To learn more about our offerings, case studies, milestones, and more, please visit www.parc.com.

Engage with PARC on Twitter @parcinc, on our blog, and at our Slideshare channel, as well as subscribe to e-newsletters and more at www.parc.com/updates.

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About PARC
PARC, a Xerox company, is in the business of open, collaborative innovation. We create new business options, accelerate time to market, augment internal capabilities, and reduce risk for our global clients – which range from Fortune 500 companies and startups to government agency partners. We do this by providing custom R&D services, technology, expertise, innovation best practices, intellectual property, and more.

Since its inception PARC has pioneered many technological breakthroughs – from the Ethernet and laser printing to the GUI and ubiquitous computing – and has enabled the creation of many industries such as personal computing, digital imaging, and more. Incorporated as an independent wholly owned subsidiary of Xerox in 2002, PARC today continues its physical, computer, and social sciences research that enables breakthroughs for our clients’ businesses.