Innovation Communities (FIND)

Innovators thrive in a vibrant local support structure with abundant connectivity to resources

We organize and energize communities to help achieve their full potential through our Fueling Innovation through Node Development (“FIND”) program.

Entrepreneurship and start up activity is highly local and often the result of unlikely collaborations created through entrepreneurial collisions in the local community. In order to be successful, entrepreneurs need a vibrant local support structure with abundant connectivity to resources.

The vision behind FIND (Fueling Innovation through Node Development) is to assemble and build local assets and energize the startup ecosystem in SoCal’s most promising innovation communities. The FIND program, initiated in partnership with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), identified the wealth of assets in SoCal and identified strategies that can fill ecosystem gaps.

The BCG work identified the nodes, or communities, where the building blocks of startup ecosystems were most concentrated across SoCal. These building blocks include density of startups, investors, talent, and corporations.The fourteen separate SoCal communities identified in the BCG analysis converged into four primary archetypes based on presence and strength of existing local resources.

  • Mature nodes: Silicon Beach, San Diego, and Culver City/West LA
  • Blossoming nodes: Downtown LA (DTLA), Pasadena, South Bay LA, West Hollywood, and North County San Diego
  • Talent anchors: Santa Barbara, Riverside, and Claremont
  • Corporate anchors: Irvine, Glendale/Burbank, and Thousand Oaks

View the interactive map and scoring

GET INVOLVED

The Alliance is standing up teams of leaders in these communities to develop strategies that build on local assets and fill gaps in the ecosystem. We believe this will increase startup density and vibrancy. If you are interested in getting involved, please get in touch.