NC finds success with SBIR/STTR matching grants

An evaluation of the One North Carolina Small Business Matching Fund, a statewide initiative providing grants of up to $50,000 to recent SBIR/STTR awardees, suggests that the program is achieving its goals of creating high-skill, high-wage jobs. Over the past 10 funding cycles, the $17.2 million deployed across 250 small businesses has created or retained more than 900 innovation-oriented jobs, and raised an additional $5.6 million in tax revenue for the state, according to the IMPLAN analysis performed by the NC Department of Commerce.

Since receiving their initial grant, approximately 60 percent of awardees go on to win the much larger Phase II SBIR/STTR grants, the Department finds. More than three-fourths of the program’s grantees remain in operation, and they have received an additional $514 million in follow-on investments. Notably, these figures do not include the recent success story of former grantee Precision BioSciences, a Durham-based gene editing startup that closed on an additional $110 million in funding this summer. Applications for the FY 2018-2019 funding cycle will be accepted until June 2019 or until funds have been exhausted.