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business
| 6/11/2009 9:54:00 AM Email this article • Print this article |
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Dave Stensland, engineering technician for Mezmeriz Inc., works on a schematic on a computer at the company’s shop on Brown Road. (Photo by Rachel Philipson) |
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Mezmeriz-ing
Rob Montana
Managing Editor
In 2008, Mezmeriz Inc. earned top honors in New York's Creative Core $100,000 Emerging Business Competition.
In addition to the recognition, the company also brought in a $100,000 check. This year Mezmeriz didn't garner a competition victory, but instead was one of five upstate New York companies - chosen from 65 applicants - to reel in funds from the state's Grant for Growth program. The company has received a $75,000 grant to work with Cornell University to develop a machine for local manufacturing of the company's primary miniprojector technology.
The state-funded grants are given to companies in the 12-county central Upstate region that partner with universities on research and development projects with the potential to create technology jobs.
Since 2006, the program has awarded 28 grants totaling $1.4 million.
The partnership with Cornell has its roots in the foundation of the company. Brad Treat, founder and chief executive officer of Mezmeriz, and Shahyaan Desai, inventor and founder, met when Treat was serving as Entrepreneur-In-Residence at Cornell and Desai was in graduate school at the university.
"We're using technology developed by Shahyaan when he was in grad school at Cornell," Treat said about the company's miniprojector product. "We're using this to make a unit about the size of a matchbook that can project crisp, clear images."
The miniprojector is being designed to be embedded in cell phones, laptop computers, video players and smart phones, and produce large screen sizes from only a short distance away. If it's still hard to comprehend what the miniprojector might be capable of, think about how camera embedded in cell phones revolutionized the industry.
Treat expects the same thing to be true with his company's product.
"We're projecting it will be a $5 billion industry in five years," he said, adding that camera phones were the exception, not the rule, in 1999; now it's hard to find a cell phone without one.
While the technology behind how the miniprojector is complex - and some of it a trade secret, the essential concept is that three colored lasers - red, blue and green - reflect off a pair of unique mirrors that are oscillating at high rates of speed - one on an X-axis, the other on a Y-axis. When the lasers are turned on and off, also at a high rate of speed, a clear, crisp, vibrant image is produced.
It's also much more energy efficient to produce the image, due to the use of lasers.
"If you think about the traditional projector, with the light bulb inside, the light is being generated in every direction," Treat said. "With this, the light is very concentrated in a small area, focusing the energy only in the direction the lasers are pointed.
"With a mobile device, energy is important, because you operate everything off battery power," he added, "and you don't want the other components of the device to get too hot because of the energy being generated."
In addition to the high quality of the image produced, perhaps the device's biggest plus is being able to project a large image onto a flat surface from a very short distance.
"People want to use their full e-mail, not just what they can see on their phone's screen," Treat said. "With this, you can do that, give presentations, play video games, watch a movie.
"People want a device they can put on their (airplane) tray table to do all that," he added, noting that was the premise behind developing its miniprojector. "Our core technology is in the way we build the mirror system, and the mathematical algorithms that make it possible."
Not only has Mezmeriz been able to garner funding through grants and the Emerging Business Competition, it also is finding investors in these tough economic times. Primarily, Treat said, investments have come in the form of venture capital firms, such as the Cayuga Venture Fund, which has been providing capital and other resources to advanced technology and high growth companies in New York State since 1994. CVF focuses on providing guidance and resources to companies commercializing high value technologies, particularly those generated at Cornell University.
Other venture capital groups that are investing in Mezmeriz include Advantage Capital Partners, founded in 1992 with a New York office near Albany; Excell Partners Inc., a regional economic development partnership established in cooperation with the University of Rochester and New York state; Onondaga Venture Capital Fund, founded in 1985 and based in Syracuse; Rand Capital Corporation, based in Buffalo and founded in 1969; and Seed Capital Fund of CNY, also based in Syracuse.
But, if times are so tough, why are these venture capital groups buying in?
"These investors take a long perspective toward investing," Treat said. "They are looking for a payoff, five, seven, sometimes 10 years down the road."
The difficulty comes with the fact that venture capitalists rely on the investments of others to generate capital to invest in companies such as Mezmeriz.
"Think about it in terms of a pie," Treat said. "These firms have a certain amount of money they invest in different things, and when the overall amount of money shrinks, so do the pieces of the pie."
As for his business, Treat said the economic woes offer pros and cons.
"The pro is that we're able to do more for much less," he said. "People are willing to strike deals, and there is a lot of good talent available for less money."
For example, Treat said, Mezmeriz employs a drafter on a part-time basis; he works two other part-time drafting jobs to supplement his income.
And, Treat said, the U.S. financial problems don't necessarily extend to the rest of the world, and Mezmeriz operates on a global scale.
"We're selling to a global market, not a U.S. market," he said, adding that the major companies involved in producing mobile devices are not based in the U.S. "My perspective is that we're selling to the entire world, and in a market that continues to grow."
He also noted that mobile devices tend to have a shorter shelf life, with people replacing them on nearly a yearly basis, which also creates demand for new products.
While Treat said Mezmeriz's competitors could have their own versions of miniprojectors out in the marketplace within the next year, they won't offer the same technology.
"They're going to be using the older technology, technology developed for, say, the old light bulb projectors," Treat said. "We're developing ours specifically for a mobile device."
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Suicide has recently come to Ithaca in a very public, and at times controversial, way. This past academic year, after three years with no suicides, Cornell experienced what is known in the scientific community as a "suicide cluster." OK, so maybe you're like me and you thought this whole JetBlue flight attendant story was good for maybe one news cycle.  |
