Celebrating the Impact and Innovation of CEI, PADT’s Startup Home

In Phoenix, just North of the airport on a record hot day of 119f, about 30 people gathered into a conference room to celebrate a place that has become a bright success in the region’s startup community. The Center For Entrepreneurial Innovations, or CEI, held their first ever Innovation and Impact Celebration.  This gathering of sponsors, clients, mentors, and staff of CEI highlighted the success that this outstanding incubator has enjoyed since its grand opening in 2013.

Some of the key numbers shared were:

• 247 high paying jobs created by CEI clients
• $28,000,000 raised by CEI clients in investments, grants, and awards
• $69,000,000 in revenue generating by CEI clients
• 3,240 hours given in mentoring and consulting to CEI clients

To celebrate this success, four awards were given out.  PADT was honored to design and 3D Print these awards (read more in a separate post here) and be there to hear the great stories from the winners about how CEI has been such a great resource.

• Paraffin International won for Graduate of the Year
• Beacon Biomedical was awarded Client of the Year
• Tom Lagerhausen & Tommy Andrews were recognized as Mentors of the Year
• The City of Phoenix received Sponsor of the Year

As a tenant at CEI, PADT gets to see the inner workings that produce such fantastic numbers.  In fact, we decided to put our focus on startups at CEI because of the quality of people, programs, and support that they offer.  Back in April of 2015, we opened PADT StartUpLabs as a place to host our outreach to the community and as a way to offer affordable 3D Printing to startups. We also host seminars and meetings there because it is just a great facility.

The primary reason that we partnered with them was a little more blunt. We saw that the companies they incubated succeeded.  When many others talk the talk of startup support, CEI has been busy walking the walk.  We see it almost every day, and it is pretty unique how well they do.  Huge fans, and great to see the key success stories and contributors being recognized!

Check out this recent video to learn a bit more about how they do it:

Check it out, and get involved.  If you are a startup, look at becoming a client.  Or maybe you can volunteer to help in some way.  But what they need the most if strong partners and sponsors.   PADT has never regretted our partnership and it has  been a great win-win experience.  Stop talking about making the Phoenix area startup ecosystem better, and step up and join CEI in making it happen.