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By From staff reports Thursday, January 25, 2007

Startup companies that received money from the Maine Technology Institute's award programs over the past five years have shown significant economic growth and are having a positive impact on Maine's economy, a new evaluation has found.

Conducted by the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Southern Maine, the evaluation examines those MTI-funded companies that completed their projects as of June 30, 2006. The companies represented 440 projects totaling $15.5 million.

According to the report, employment in MTI-funded companies surveyed has risen by more than 600, a growth rate of 6.2 percent. That compared with 0.9 percent for the Maine economy as a whole between 2001 and 2006. The evaluation also shows that revenue from MTI companies equaled or exceeded $100 million by 2006.

The study found that wages in MTI-funded companies are approximately 20 percent higher than the average Maine wage; for every dollar of MTI assistance, more than $12 is leveraged in external financing; and that 60 percent of MTI-funded research projects have led to marketable products and services.

Although investing in early stage research and development projects is risky, MTI's track record shows the benefits of such investments as part of a long-term process to transform Maine into an innovation-based economy, according to Charles Colgan, the center's associate director and principal investigator of the evaluation.

MTI was created by the Legislature in 1999.