When the West Des Moines Business Incubator opened its doors last fall, Brian Donaghy was ready on day one to move in with his start-up company, Appcore LLC. On Tuesday, the incubator’s first tenant joined development officials and other incubator tenants in celebrating its “graduation” from the facility.

“We knew we needed to grow; the West Des Moines incubator provided a good, flexible platform for us,” said Donaghy, who launched Appcore in 2008 following the sale of his first business, Computility Inc., to Alliance Technologies Inc. in 2006. Appcore specializes in manufacturing cloud-computing hardware and software, which it markets to telephone companies to use to offer Internet services to their customers.

Appcore will move on July 1 to the Financial Center, 666 Walnut St., where it will occupy most of the 12th floor, Donaghy said.

“We’ve hit the high-growth stage of the company,” said Donaghy, who said he expects to hire another 15 employees in Des Moines by the end of the year. Appcore currently operates data centers in Boone and St. Mary’s in Iowa, as well as a data center in Zimbabwe. The company currently has 12 employees in Iowa and 20 in South Africa.

Located at 2829 Westown Parkway, Suite 220, the incubator offers 14 office spaces that range from $200 to $450 per month. Six businesses currently occupy nine of the spaces, said Sherry Shafer, the incubator’s director. Businesses can lease the spaces for as long as three years, but Shafer said she expects the average stay will be closer to Appcore’s.

West Des Moines officials yesterday also welcomed the first tenant that has been awarded a scholarship to the incubator. Ironclad Systems LLC, a computer networking company, will receive free space at the incubator for up to three years. Clyde Evans, development director for the city of West Des Moines, said that $50,000 in scholarship funds are available, funded last year from federal economic recovery funds through the Community Development Block Grant program.