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After considerable growth in the number of startups raising a first round of venture capital financing between 2009 and 2014, there has been a geographically widespread contraction, according to new research from Ian Hathaway at the Center of American Entrepreneurship, a D.C. based advocacy group. In America’s Rising Startup Communities, Hathaway explores the geography of first venture capital financing across U.S.

The executive council of ENDOW, an economic development initiative started by Wyoming governor Matt Mead, has announced its preliminary recommendations to diversify and grow the state’s economy, including statewide programs to support tech-based economic development that total more than $36 million.

Despite concern that America’s entrepreneurial engine is severely damaged, new research from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) finds that the number of technology-based startups has grown by 47 percent from 2007 to 2016, with wage growth higher than the national average. Because of their high growth potential, the authors suggest that technology-based startups should be the primary focus of entrepreneurship policy.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported that startup firms (small businesses that were five-years-old or younger and had full- or part-time employees in 2016) were twice as likely to be adding jobs and growing revenues but more likely to be higher credit risk than mature firms. The 2016 Small Business Credit Survey: Report on Startup Firms provides an in-depth look at the financing and credit experiences of the startups.

Over the past four years, 1,668 deals involving university spinout companies from across the globe attracted approximately $35.6 billion from 2013 to 2016, according to a new report from Global University Venturing. The report, however, highlights that global deals peaked in 2014 with 529 deals and total investments dollars peaked in 2015 with nearly $14 billion invested. As the authors highlighted, these global numbers were unsustainable and 2016 saw significant declines in both deals and dollars. In 2016, the total deals reported were 407 (21.6 percent decrease from 2015) and dollars invested was $6.4 billion (a 54.3 percent decrease from 2015).

The Blackstone Charitable Foundation has announced its first cohort of eight organizations in the Chicago-area entrepreneurship challenge. Named the BX Challenge, up to $3 million in grant funding will be provided over three years to innovative organizations that effectively recruit and support diverse entrepreneurs and scale startups in the Chicago area. The selected programs will serve underserved populations, including communities of color, women, veterans, and immigrants.

In a market economy, what people are willing to pay determines something’s value. Airline tickets are a good example. For most of the major airlines, the price to purchase a seat the day of a flight seems to be some multiple of how much the airline thinks they can get away charging versus any drive to actually see the seat used. This supply-demand principle falls apart though with valuations set for startup companies funded by equity investors, such as angels or venture capitalists. In the risk capital business, a number of possible factors influences a startup company’s value – most tied to future markets, comparables, or dreams of big exits. Recent research from the University of British Columbia and Stanford University suggests just how surprisingly risky – and overly optimistic – this approach is.

The traditional school season is ending across the country, but a new offering from Y Combinator (YC) does not follow a traditional path and instead allows students of startups the opportunity to participate from anywhere in an online course. The 10-week course, which began April 5, was open to startup founders, but the lectures are posted online weekly for “spectators.” Y Combinator, the Silicon Valley-based accelerator, explains on the course webpage that they thought the barrier to entry for people to start a startup is still too high, so they decided to share what they’ve learned through Startup School.

Arkansas has new tools targeting growth in the state’s innovation and technology sector after Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed legislation creating a $2 million accelerator grant program for startups and establishing a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) matching funds program. The Arkansas Economic Development Commission’s (AEDC) Division of Science and Technology will administer the programs and seek corporate sponsors to provide matching funds to create accelerator events throughout the state.

Tuesday’s ceremonial groundbreaking on a new building in Philadelphia marks the foundation of a new collaboration between a number of players that are hoping to accelerate the innovation community in the city.

While the majority of founders say the tech industry is in a bubble (57 percent of respondents),  nine out of 10 founders believe that it’s a good time to be starting a company and are highly optimistic about their own firms’ futures, according to State of Startups for 2016 from First Round Capital – a seed-stage venture firm.

Startup activity in the United States has increased for the second straight year after declining throughout the Great Recession and the years that followed, according to a newly updated index from the Kauffman Foundation. The metropolitan areas with the highest levels in 2016 Kauffman Index of Startup Activity are Austin, Miami, and Los Angeles. Among large states, the most startup activity according to the 2016 index were in Texas, Florida, and California, while Montana, Nevada, and Wyoming had the highest levels among smaller states.

Because they focus on attracting mature firms through relocation incentives, job creation strategies at the state level are often misguided, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Despite this, many metropolitan regions are increasingly focusing their efforts on attracting and retaining the high-growth firms responsible for an oversized share of job growth and economic output. While considerable research has focused on the important role that startups and high-growth firms play in the national economy, relatively little has been done to apply a regional lens to this phenomenon. New research, tracks high-growth firms over a multiple-year period to assess how their changing operations can inform regional economic development.

Last week, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) held a special meeting that include approximately 100 investors and venture capitalists to help stimulate private sector investments in rural infrastructure projects with the potential to spur economic development in small towns and rural communities across the country. Through its U.S.