www.roanoke.com/business/wb/wb/xp-130833 -
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Published on: 9/6/2007
Last Visited: 9/6/2007
Victor Iannello, Synchrony's founder, president and chief executive officer, said the company spent $1.2 million to equip the factory, which at 58,000 square feet is five times the size of the company's current home on Commonwealth Drive in Roanoke County, which will be closed within six months.
Now with 28 employees, the company intends to hire 14 production workers during the next year and 14 others in research, engineering and sales.
The chief executive bought lunch Wednesday for business community leaders and his employees under a big white tent on the front lawn of Synchrony's newly leased factory Valley Tech Park.
"This facility is going to give us the capability to begin producing products at a very high volume," Iannello said.
The company, founded in 1993 and focused on research and engineering to date, previously manufactured only prototypes and small orders.But that will change.The emergence of products from the laboratory and into the marketplace will begin "immediately," Iannello said.
One customer, which he declined to identify, has ordered several hundred integrated drive trains annually.A drive train combines magnetic bearings, a motor and controls.
The tipping point -- when revenue from product sales exceeds that from research and engineering -- will come in 2008, he said in an interview.
"This announcement recognizes a transition from R&D to an organization that will derive most of its revenue from product sales," Iannello said.
Iannello said that, unlike many other Roanoke Valley companies, Synchrony has not received taxpayer-funded incentives from state or local government to fuel its growth.
He said the $14 million needed to bring the company to the verge of production came from $9 million earned under research contracts from such customers as the Department of Defense and Rolls-Royce and $5 million voluntarily invested by NewVa Capital Partners LLC in return for equity.
NewVa is a venture capital pool funded by Carilion Clinic, the Virginia Tech Foundation and Third Security, a Radford private equity firm.
Iannello, an engineer who started Synchrony at home using his family's savings, said Synchrony's progress all goes to demonstrate that it's possible to give birth to, nurture and fund a technology company in the Roanoke Valley.