This week marked the launch of New York Ventures, an Empire State Development program dedicated to encouraging innovation and fueling economic growth in communities across New York. The program is derived of three separate funds: the $100 million New York State Innovation Venture Capital Fund; the $45 million Innovative NY Fund; and, the $2 million Minority- and Women-Owned Business Investment Fund. As part of the New York Ventures launch, Empire State Development also announced the NYS Innovation Venture Capital Fund’s close on financing for two New York-based tech companies.

In 2009, only 9.5 percent of venture-backed startups had a female founder, according to a research by CrunchBase. By 2014, that figure had almost doubled, reaching 18 percent. During that period, the absolute number of companies with a female founder quadrupled. More women are also seeking early stage funds.

Tasked with taking the Small Business Administration (SBA) to the next level, Maria Contreras Sweet, the new head of the agency, envisions a modern SBA with a greater focus on inclusion. Contreras Sweet outlined steps to achieve her vision earlier this week in a speech at the Center for American Progress.

In a previous Digest, SSTI discussed the positive impact that community banks have had on small business lending activity and economic growth in communities across the country since the Great Recession. In this article, SSTI shares two studies on the existing roadblocks and pessimism faced by minority small business and entrepreneurs as they seek financing through banks.

Bringing the innovation community together and examining how it has advanced — or how it hasn’t — is one of the driving goals of SSTI’s annual conferences. This year we brought together thought-provoking leaders to help reflect on whether stakeholders in the innovation economy are moving the needle in the right direction.

While women comprise approximately 33 percent of the combined founder and employee workforce at startup companies, they hold just 9 percent of all equity value in those companies, according to The Gap Table from Carta – a software platform for managing startup equity and ownership. The new report was based upon capitalization table (cap table) data from more than 6,000 companies with a combined total of nearly $45 billion in equity value.