The tradeport was also the first-choice location for Kyle McNamara '96, founder of Español.com, but he did not wind up there. A Spanish and Latin American literature major at UNH, McNamara was working in California as a software engineer when he came up with the idea of launching a Spanish-language shopping site on the Internet. In 1998, he devoted three weeks of vacation to drafting a business plan, and McNamara incorporated Español.com in November of that year.

When he started pitching his idea to potential investors, McNamara was told that Portsmouth was too far from Boston, which has a large Spanish-speaking population. So he set up shop in an office park in Wakefield, Mass., within sight of Route 128. He launched the business with $15.5 million in venture capital funding and saw it grow from three employees to 70 in its first year. "I've learned that in the Internet space, you have to compress 10 years of business into one year," he says. "You have to be very careful not to burn out."

If McNamara had started a year later, his investors might not have had a problem with the Portsmouth location. Venture capitalists seem to have a good feeling about the e-Coast now. "A lot of early-stage companies who have something viewed as 'hot' are able to get more money at an earlier stage than they could before," says Jim Cook, a lawyer who serves on the New Hampshire High Tech Council's board of directors. Just a year ago, he says, few investors would offer money to a firm north of Andover, Mass., but today venture-capital investment in New Hampshire is about 100 times greater than the U.S. average.

Last year, 27 New Hampshire companies received $233 million in venture capital, according to Jeffrey E. Sohl, director of the university's Center for Venture Research. "My view of venture capital is that they're following a market trend," he adds, explaining that investors are always looking for the next new thing. "They have to be educated, and I argue that the next 'new thing' is here."

The explosive growth of e-commerce companies in its own backyard has created opportunities for UNH, says Ross Gittell, an associate professor and chair of the management department at the Whittemore School of Business and Economics. Every high-tech community has access to a good university, he points out, and it is in the interests of both the local e-businesses and the university to develop close ties. E-Coast businesses are pushing the envelope in technology and business strategies, and, as with universities everywhere, "part of the reason to facilitate a stronger relationship with the industry is because we can learn a lot," Gittell observes.

UNH is considered an important source of talented employees for the new companies, but it can't meet all the demand. For example, the university graduates about 30 students a year with majors in computer science, and they are often recruited and hired as much as two years before they graduate. "If we could double our student output, I believe there still would be a great demand," says Ted Sparr, chair of the computer science department, "but we don't have the faculty or resources to do that."

What UNH can do, Sparr says, is provide continuing education programs to help high-tech employees stay current with new developments. Next year, the computer science department will offer a course in fiber optic networks in response to the needs of computer scientists at local companies. The department is already offering certificate and graduate degree programs through the graduate school, and for three years, university instructors have been offering courses in engineering, math and computer science over the Internet.