The University of North Carolina at Charlotte along with leading private sector interests created the Ben Craig Center Incubator in 1986. The purpose of the Incubator is to 
provide state-of-the-art office space to the region's most promising companies in order to accelerate their growth by offering them advisory services, mentoring relationships, sales and marketing expertise and access to capital. The Center has graduated 102 companies since its inception with 80% financially viable at graduation.
Our Incubator clients have historically entered the program with 3-5 employees and between $250,000 and $1.5 million in revenue or start-up capital. Our Incubator clients represent a broad range of business sectors, 44% technology, 39% service oriented, and 17% product sales. Our average client resides in our facility for 3-5 years.
The Incubator program at the Ben Craig Center provides office space, advisory services and access to a network of business leaders to the service and technology companies that reside in the Center's 50,000 square foot facility. Few early stage companies have the depth of management experience they need to overcome the most common growth challenges. As part of the Incubator program, client companies have access to the Incubator's professional staff. The staff is experienced in successfully managing the sales, marketing, accounting, leadership, and vision issues that keep companies from growing.
Because of the day-to-day responsibilities of growing a business many entrepreneurs do not have the time necessary to develop critical professional relationships. The Incubator program maintains a group of leading business people, professional service providers and financiers who are committed to mentoring and sharing their expertise with our program participants. The mentoring or business advisory meetings generally involve business planning, sharing professional expertise, finance management and sales strategies.
Being a participant in the Incubator programs includes many different benefits:
