The Innovative Push within Riverside County
Riverside County’s tech industry is expected to grow tremendously over the next decade. According to EMSI, these technology companies will add 100,000 jobs in Riverside County by 2030. Residents in Riverside County have access to 17 colleges and universities that provide a deep well of talent for start-ups. Reinier van der Lee, the CEO of Vinduino, for example, has received hundreds of applications in response to job postings, illustrating, as he puts it, that access to high-level talent is “not a problem.” This talent pool is critical to fueling the sector’s growth over the next decade. Riverside County already has a foundation of quality lab and testing facilities.
Martin Kleckner, Director of EPIC-SBDC at UCR, says the county’s test beds are second to none and are used to support both start-ups and established companies. These facilities often come at a considerable discount to the coastal markets. Murrieta’s Innovation Center is expanding to include a wet lab, and Jay Goth, Co-Founder, Murrieta Genomics, is in active discussions with developers to build out facilities to accommodate companies as they graduate from the start-up phase. “When you have a nice facility, that attracts a lot more people,” says Goth, adding that he has gotten a lot of interest from developers. “My vision is to grow the Murrieta area into a built-out R&D hub, similar to what they have done in San Diego,” says Goth. Industry stakeholders are also building internal capital sources to fund promising projects.
Martin Kleckner helped launch the Riverside Angels Summit Investors to pool capital from high-net worth individuals from within the county. Kleckner is currently working to secure more than $23 million in funding for 11 different companies in Riverside County. In the next decade, Riverside County will be a significant new technology market with mature, growing and early-stage start- ups, but that foundation is being laid today. It’s a shared goal everyone in the County is working toward. Innovation is happening in Riverside County. Visit RivCoInnovation.org to learn more.
