Fathomwerx Lab, a collaborative, innovative partnership between Naval Surface Warfare Center, Port Hueneme Division (NSWC PHD) in California and local private and public organizations that researches emerging technologies to potentially transition to the Navy fleet, has been designated an Inclusive Innovative Hub, or iHub2, from California’s Office of the Small Business Advocate (CalOSBA), a department within The Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz).
The state designation gives Fathomwerx Lab the ability to pursue venture capital funding from outside investors for individual projects that promote inclusivity and a diverse network of innovators.
The designation also supports the partnership’s work on potential new technologies with the hiring of a full-time program manager for the lab, and lines up possible future government funding sources that could help attract more local commercial businesses to the lab and its capabilities.
The program manager would work with companies that are typically underrepresented but have unique capabilities or technology solutions which would benefit the Navy and regional ecosystem, and build engagement programs related to capabilities and needs.
“The recently announced iHub2 resources will expand Fathomwerx’s access to a diverse and under-represented network of innovators, and that could realistically lead to fresh and potential solutions to national security initiatives,” said Jeff Koe, technical director of NSWC PHD, at an April 12 event to announce Fathomwerx Lab’s iHub2 designation and held at the facility’s Port of Hueneme location.
The iHub2 designation comes with a $250,000 grant—the size of which could become a down payment for future grants—from the Office of the Small Business Advocate’s Inclusive Innovation Hub program, according to Tara Lynn Gray, CalOSBA director.
“We want to elevate the voice of small business across California,” Gray said at the event. The original iHub program has been around for a decade, but this is the first time that money has come with the designation to collaborative partnerships, she explained.
The iHub2 grant supports an inclusive ecosystem for entrepreneurs and small companies over the next three years by providing them with high-technology services, workshops and mentoring and networking events. Besides Fathomwerx, Gray’s office also made nine other regional private-public partnership grants of $250,000 to similar efforts underway from San Diego to Santa Cruz, California. The Fathomwerx funding is significant because it represents the first-ever funding for an iHub in which the Navy, or any military branch for that matter, is involved, Gray said.
And more funding could also be on the way.
Gray told the event attendees that California Gov. Gavin Newsom is seeking $20 million in additional funding for iHubs—including the designation of three additional iHubs throughout the state—in the fiscal year beginning July 1. That budget proposal has not yet been approved by the state legislature.
Fathomwerx Lab’s origin began in 2019, when NSWC PHD partnered with the Economic Development Collaborative, a Ventura County business advocacy group, the Port of Hueneme and Camarillo, California-based startup studio Matter Labs to create, an incubator that collaborates with high-technology startups to transition applicable technology to the Navy’s warfighters and fleet.
NSWC PHD and its partners offer the 60,000 square-foot Fathomwerx facility to NSWC PHD employees as well as private industry and academic stakeholders to innovate in the facility.
Researchers experiment, manufacture, 3D-print and perform materials testing in the maker space portion of the lab, while other visiting organizations and companies test and practice underwater submersibles in a 75,000-gallon water tank. Still others use the lab’s drone cage to test unmanned vehicles.
The Naval Agility Office’s (NavalX) Ventura Tech Bridge operates out of NSWC PHD’s Fathomwerx Lab, and last year welcomed a new partner in the Naval Facilities Engineering and Expeditionary Warfare Center, which operates out of Naval Base Ventura County. And just recently, NSWC PHD and Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division, which performs weapons research, development, acquisition and test and evaluation in its state-of-the-art laboratories and facilities in Point Mugu and China Lake, signed a Memorandum of Understanding to share resources, lab space, research and problem-solving while also creating a pipeline of communication and innovation.
“We’re really excited where we are going now,” said Alan Jaeger, the command’s Office of Research and Technology Applications manager and director of the Ventura Tech Bridge.
The new iHUB2 designation, Jaeger said, helps Fathomwerx to further “find and engage the community, companies and ecosystems that maybe we didn’t have before.”
An important aspect of the CalOSBA grant is the establishment of funding for the full-time program manager and a contract with Matter Labs, according to Bruce Stenslie, president and CEO of the Economic Development Collaborative, which will administer the iHub2 in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.
“This is our most strategic initiative,” Stenslie said.
“We are collectively thrilled for the recognition by the state and for its investment,” he added. “This new state and local partnership delivers value for us both, assuring that California continues to invest in the kinds of innovation that drives our economic vitality, and that locally, we’re adding resources to assure the economic participation and benefit by historically under-represented populations.”
Other attendees of the press conference included representatives of the cities of Oxnard and Simi Valley; the Ventura County Workforce Development Board; City National Bank; Mechanics Bank; and the office of State Sen. Monique Limon, who represents Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. Kristin Decas, CEO and director of the Port of Hueneme, also attended with others from the port, and gave opening remarks.
“As one of the founding partners of Fathomwerx (Lab), the Port of Hueneme is excited that the iHub2 program will bolster the advancement of an inclusive service and provide resources to support ongoing change for high-tech entrepreneurs and small business companies,” Decas said.
Bryan Went, co-founder and co-CEO of Matter Labs, outlined the importance of transferring technology and manufacturing processes out of Fathomwerx Lab, with the CalOSBA grant helping to fuel this effort. In an example for attendees, he showed a battery-powered camera that can transmit and receive digitized images over long distances via radio waves in its own wireless network.
The idea of the camera grew out of technology first developed at Fathomwerx.
Went described the camera as but “one example of the commercialization of a technology that happened at a faster clip than anyone thought possible,” and said he sees the possibility of other commercialization projects coming to fruition as a result of the CalOSBA designation and funding.
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