accelerators

Throughout the United States, innovation districts have been proposed with varying degrees of emphasis on inclusivity and opportunity. In January 2016, a public-private partnership representing many of Baltimore’s most influential anchor institutions, community-based organizations, and private companies declared their intent to develop an innovation district in West Baltimore dubbed the “Innovation Village.”  This week, the Innovation Village steering committee announced several initiatives aimed at supporting inclusive economic growth in West Baltimore neighborhoods including free Wi-Fi, entrepreneurial assistance programs, and the development of a food hub.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich signed a bill (HB 233) last month that authorizes cities and villages to create Downtown Redevelopment Districts (DRDs) that can address innovation districts and/or historic rehabilitation. The DRDs permit tax abatements of up to 70 percent of increased assessments in conjunction with payments in lieu of taxes (PILOTs) or a redevelopment charge that functions as a special assessment tax. In the case of innovation districts, these charges may be used to fund loans or grants to technology businesses—specifically including R&D and technology transfer activities—or to incubators or accelerators in the district. To qualify as an innovation district, the area must include access to a high-speed broadband network capable of download speeds of at least 100 GB/S. Read the announcement...

Although many leaders of high-tech incubator and accelerator programs do not currently offer targeted programs to ensure inclusivity of all populations, they have conveyed they would like to do so, according to new research from the Initiative for the Competitive Inner City (ICIC), with financial support from JP Morgan Chase. The research brief, which was unveiled this week as part of Detroit’s Startup Week, draws on interviews with more than 75 entrepreneurship, incubator and accelerator program managers to identify barriers to inclusivity and present potential strategies that could increase the participation rates of women and minority entrepreneur.

The Small Business Administration (SBA) announced the 2016 Growth Accelerator Fund competition. In its third year, the SBA will commit up to $3.95 million for accelerators and other entrepreneurial ecosystem models to compete for monetary prizes of $50,000 each. This year, the SBA will partner with several other federal agencies – NIH, NSF, Department of Education, and USDA – to provide additional prizes to accelerators that assist entrepreneurs with submitting proposals for the Small Business Innovation (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs. Applications must be submitted by June 3.

Startup accelerators, which began emerging in 2005 with the launch of Y-Combinator, generally share three characteristics: they tend to be limited in duration; work with cohorts of early stage entrepreneurs; and, aim to facilitate connections with potential investors. In July 2015, the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE) and Emory University’s Social Enterprise @ Goizueta (SE@G) program announced the launch of the Global Accelerator Learning Initiative (GALI), a $2.3 million effort aimed toward assessing and analyzing the impacts of these accelerators. In collaboration with Village Capital, GALI released its first report last month, focusing on the effectiveness of accelerator programs, best practices in the space, and estimated impacts. Ultimately, the authors find support that the quality of partners and applicants has a positive impact on accelerator performance, while there is limited support that mentor quality or cohort networking played as strong a role.

NASA is accepting applications for the Space Race Competition – a startup accelerator challenge that allows startups to license patented NASA technologies without any up-front costs and no minimum fees for up to three years. In partnership with the Center for Advancing Innovation (CAI), NASA will allow potential startup teams to choose one of 10 specially selected NASA technologies and develop a plan to commercialize it. Winners of the four-stage challenge will be enrolled in a business accelerator program that provides training in business fundamentals and access to mentorship from industry experts as well as prizes of $2,500 each. In addition to the $2,500 prizes, awardees have the opportunity to raise as much as $1.2 million seed funding from an unnamed, committed private investment fund. Applications are due May 1, 2016. More information is available at: http://technology.nasa.gov/spacerace.

Over the last few months, a number of universities across the country have launched pre-accelerator programs – a new trend that has emerged in university-led efforts to support entrepreneurial growth among faculty and students. This week, the Digest examines this growing trend and attempts to provide insight into two important questions about pre-accelerators:

Update: You can view the full webinar and download the slide presentation at: http://ssti.org/regional-innovation-strategies-program-informational-webinar

At a White House event, the Small Business Administration (SBA) announced approximately $4 million to prizes to 80 growth accelerators in 43 states the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico through the second round of its Growth Accelerator Fund Competition. Launched in 2014, the competition makes awards of $50,000 each to help fund operating budgets for accelerators and other entrepreneurial ecosystem models in parts of the country where there are fewer conventional sources of access to capital (e.g., venture capital and angel capital investors). The SBA Office of Native American Affairs also used the competition to award an additional $400,000 to ecosystems primarily dedicated to Native American entrepreneurs and small businesses. Read the press release…

Located just a 20-minutes from New York City, Newark has long existed in the shadow of its much larger neighbor. Despite this, Newark’s downtown received an important boost to its innovation ecosystem this week with the announcement of Newark Venture Partners, a venture capital fund and accelerator. Seeded with funding from Audible.com and Prudential Financial and backed by city and state officials, Newark Venture Partners announced its intention to raise $50 million to form an investment fund dedicated to supporting local tech startups.