accelerators

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), and its federal partners, announced the winners of its third annual Growth Accelerator Fund Competition on August 31. The 68 winners in 32 states and the District of Columbia were judged by more than 100 experts from both the public and private sector with entrepreneurial, investment, startup, economic development, capital formation and academic backgrounds.

Around the world, accelerator programs continue to multiply, prompting the need for continued research on what they are, how they operate, and how they can be evaluated. The Global Accelerator Report 2015, recently released by Gust and Fundacity, highlights the global development of the accelerator industry and includes details on how accelerators are funded and insights into the industry’s future.

Throughout the United States, innovation districts have been proposed with varying degrees of emphasis on inclusivity and opportunity.

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.

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 entrepreneurs.

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.

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.

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:

Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker announced the launch of the Economic Development Administration's (EDA) 2015 Regional Innovation Strategies (RIS) Program competition to spur innovation capacity-building activities in regions across the nation. Under the 2015 announcement, SBA will commit $10 million for two funding opportunities.