When Sagar Patil arrived on campus as a graduate student at Kettering University, he’d already started his own business. With the help of resources like the Kettering Entrepreneur Society (KES), he’s been able to expand, offering both new services and new locations.

Patil registered Credence Corporation as a corporation in the United States in 2011. He started the company in his native India in 2009 as a web hosting company. Now, Credence Corporation offers many services, including web design, marketing and live streaming services, among others. Patil says the company has generated about $150,000 in revenue and the business has physical locations in India, Michigan and Washington D.C. with more locations planned in the near future.

KES has proven a valuable resource as Patil tried to move his business from India to the U.S.

“I joined KES last year, and introduced my business and concept,” said Patil, who received his master’s in Engineering Management from Kettering 2013. “The peer to peer networking in KES is very valuable. Everyone helped me learn and understand the U.S. market.”
Patil is also a program manager for Kettering’s Entrepreneurship Across the University initiative.

He helps organize weekly Innovation Quest challenges for students, helps bring in guest speakers and lecturers and has several other roles in EAU and KES. Although Credence Corporation is an information technology company, Patil has aspirations to grow and use his engineering education as well.

“It’s an IT company, but I have a mechanical engineering background,” he said. “I would like to expand or start my own manufacturing company.”

For more on Credence Corporation, visit www.credencecorporation.com.

KES was established in 2006 with a KEEN grant from the Kern Family Foundation. The KES mission is “to promote an entrepreneurial culture at Kettering University based on innovation and social values.” In addition to the approximately $71,000 in funding that KES has provided to student startups, the organization also provides mentoring and feedback as students launch their businesses. For more information or to become involved in KES, contact Massoud Tavakoli at massoud.tavakoli@kettering.edu.