Boise’s 2022 Entrepreneur Week
This year, Compose was proud to attend Boise’s annual Entrepreneur Week! In this article, we have included a quick run-down of the week’s events and our top three takeaways.
The lay of the land
Over the course of five days, events were held across nine different tracks throughout downtown Boise. Most panel and speaking events were held at Jack’s Urban Meeting Place (JUMP). JUMP is a unique campus with a mix of office, event, and community spaces, and regularly features family-friendly installations and local art.
The week’s events were impressive, with speakers ranging from established local companies and government entities to up-and-coming businesses. The week ended with an innovators’ pitch competition and $300K in prizes (and media exposure) for winners.
Top 3 takeaways
Business is booming in Idaho.
According to the 2020 census data, Idaho was identified as the second fastest-growing state over the last decade. And while the moniker was based on population size alone, a closer look at the data indicates that business growth has escalated sharply as well. A 2021 census survey showed a 28% annual increase in new business applications, with Idaho in the top 10 states in terms of growth. And according to the 2021 Idaho Deal Flow Report, “startups, businesses, and investors showed increased interest in Idaho companies with an average deal amount of $22 million” and $3.5 billion in total capital. With an increase in population, Idaho has also experienced a boom in investment dollars for local businesses. And the mix of established and new entities across industries at Boise Entrepreneur Week (BEW) inspired confidence in the region’s commercial diversity.
Impressive healthcare & tech innovations.
Due to lower financial (and ultimately risk) barriers, many innovations that would have died on the vine in nearby Silicon Valley have been wholeheartedly supported by this new group of entrepreneurs and investors in Idaho’s Treasure Valley. For example, the first-place winner in BEW’s pitch competition, Galena Innovations is a start-up focused on “effective, low-cost treatments and interventions” in women’s health. Galena’s medical device, the Hannah cervical cup, represents one of the first device innovations in obstetrics in more than 50 years. It is currently in two trials, awaiting the next phases of a supporting grant for future feasibility studies.
“Obstetrics has been a stagnant field as far as innovations since the 1960s,” Galena CEO Ashley Crafton said. “You can 3D-print an exact replica of a 65-year-old man’s heart to build a valve just for him. It’s time for things to change.”
There were countless impressive health-tech, fin-tech, and energy-tech companies and innovators present, but the other big winner at BEW was a cybersecurity company called Shadowscape ($100,000 Connetic Ventures equity seed award). Shadowscape is a bootstrapped start-up, which conducts in-depth risk assessments and quantifies the cyber risk based on likelihood, as well as the cost of investing in different potential solutions. Unlike many of its competitors, Shadowscape allows its clients to be proactive, rather than reactive.Sustainable infrastructure growth.
While still considered one of the nation’s most rural states due to its large land area and relatively low population density, Idaho has a lot of room to grow. One of the biggest threads throughout BEW was the conscientious expansion of infrastructure, particularly in the Treasure Valley. Many compared the residential and commercial growth of Boise to Austin, TX over the last decade. But in this comparison, there were also many lessons to be gleaned from the development (or lack thereof) of Austin’s roads and highway networks, housing, and energy. Business in Boise has a bright future, but it is clear that more discussions between local government and private partnerships must take place to prepare for that future.
Next year?
While this year marked our first exposure, it certainly won’t be our last. We look forward to supporting this community of entrepreneurs and attending this annual event for many years to come.