SBA Announces 2024 Growth Accelerator Fund Competition Stage One Winners, up to $3 Million in Prizes Awarded

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has announced the 2024 Growth Accelerator Fund Competition (GAFC) Stage One winners. Each received $50,000 in prize awards for impactful and inclusive approaches to foster a thriving, collaborative national innovation support ecosystem to advance small business R&D. The SBA press release announcing the winners stated that “GAFC Stage One winners are organizations with ecosystem-building activities, including recruitment of new partners and strengthening existing alliances among stakeholders (including public, private, nonprofit, and academic partners), that aligned their submission with one of the following GAFC Theme Areas” of national and economic security; domestic manufacturing and production; and, sustainability and biotechnology.

The 2024 Stage One winners are in 41 U.S. states and territories, including Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico. The following SSTI members were among the 60 Stage One Winners:

National and Economic Security

Ind.: Central Indiana Corporate Partnership 
Md: Association of University Research Parks (AURP)
Miss.: Innovate Mississippi
Neb.: Invest Nebraska

Domestic Manufacturing and Production
N.Y.: FuzeHub

Sustainability and Biotechnology
Ill.: University of Illinois
N.Y.: The Research Foundation for SUNY
Pa.: University City Science Center

Details about all 60 winners are available here. See Figure 1 below for a map showing location and topics of winners.

Figure 1: Map showing 2024 GAFC Awards by topic area.

For more information about the Growth Accelerator Fund Competition and how to connect with a Stage Two Growth Accelerator Partnership, visit SBA Growth Accelerator Fund Competition.