NORTH SIOUX CITY, May 16, 2021 — A medical-tech startup aims to have its headquarters and first production site up and running in North Sioux City by the end of this year.
And, if all goes well, the owner of NextBeam says more tech companies will flock to North Sioux just to be in their vicinity.
NextBeam, a medical equipment-sterilization business, is building a $20 million facility on the former Gateway campus, next to the Peru and Mexico buildings. NextBeam also will occupy some space in both Peru and Mexico, which was among the one-time black-and-white cow-spotted metal structures the computer maker built in the 1990s.
NextBeam is headed by tech veteran Andrew Patton, who served as a Google executive, an aerospace engineer with Boeing and a tech-investment banker in Silicon Valley before founding NextBeam last year.
The company was approved for $3 million in REDI (Revolving Economic and Development Initiative) loans by the South Dakota Board of Economic Development last year. Patton said the company will have 15 employees by the fourth quarter, later growing to more than 30.