October 2, 2007

Imaginestics LLC to receive small business technology award from national association

Imaginestics, which is based at the Purdue Research Park in West Lafayette, Ind., is one of 55 companies to receive the Tibbetts Award and was selected from more than 4,000 nominees. The complete list of winners is available online at https://www.tibbettsawards.org.

Named for Roland Tibbetts, the person acknowledged as the father of the Small Business Innovation Research program, these national awards are made annually to small firms, projects, organizations and individuals judged to exemplify the very best in SBIR achievement.

As part of the award, Imaginestics will receive a grant from the Small Business Innovation Research program. The company has received innovation research awards totaling $1.73 million from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Defense, and  $800,000 from the state of Indiana as matching Small Business Innovation Research funding awards.

Without the Small Business Innovation Research award, Imaginestics could not have been in a position to take the initial idea of connecting buyers and suppliers through visual content from concept to commercialization, thus developing the world's first online visual search engine for manufacturing," said Nainesh Rathod, president and CEO of Imaginestics. "The visual search technology had some key challenges to overcome, including achieving accurate matches for highly complex manufacturing parts and bringing down the search time to seconds."

Through the Small Business Innovation Research program, Imaginestics researchers were able to prototype the idea and introduce it in the market in a relatively short time.

This allowed Imaginestics to gain market support and receive additional funding from the National Science Foundation for the Small Business Innovation Research Phase II B project and receive additional funding from industry partners, such as Lockheed Martin and Dana Corp.," Rathod said. "Due to Imaginestics' success, the National Science Foundation showcased us at the MIT Enterprise Forum, which enabled us to be recognized by numerous investors. We are currently in discussions with some of these investors for further growth investment."

About the Small Business Technology Council

Since its inception in 1995, SBTC (https://www.sbtc.org) has played a crucial role in aiding small technology-based companies by promoting congressional legislation and federal regulations, including reauthorization of the SBIR program.

About the Purdue Research Park

The Purdue Research Park is home to more than 140 companies. About 90 of these firms are technology-related, creating the greatest cluster of these types of ventures in the state. The park is part of the Purdue Research Foundation, a private, nonprofit foundation created to assist Purdue University. The 591-acre research park, just north of campus, has the largest university-affiliated, business incubation complex in the country. The Purdue Technology Centers comprise four complementary facilities totaling 195,000 square feet.

To the Purdue Research Park, https://www.purdueresearchpark.com

Sources:

Nainesh Rathod, (765) 464-1700 Ext. 111, nainesh.rathod@imaginestics.com

Juneyeta Gates, Imaginestics LLC, (765) 464-1700 Ext. 114

Jere Glover, Small Business Technology Council, (202) 662-9700

Purdue Research Foundation marketing and communication contact: 

Cynthia Sequin, (765) 494-4192 (office), (765) 413-6031 (mobile), casequin@prf.org