SBA ‘Seed Fund’ Road Tour For Entrepreneurs, Tech Firms Coming
by February 16, 2015 1:14 pm 145 views
The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) will launch an 18-state road tour in late March that is part of the agency’s national “seed fund” outreach initiative to help many advanced technology firms move from idea generation to commercialization.
The national road tour, called “Seeding America’s Future Innovations,” is administered through the SBA’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs.
Beginning Monday (Feb. 16), the SBA is launching information on the tour through www.sbir.gov and will also launch a blog that will be active through the end of the tour in late August.
Since its inception, the two SBA programs have handed out more than 150,000 awards totaling about $40 billion. These federal earmarks have provided seed funding to innovative companies devoted to science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or so-called STEM fields – including Qualcomm, iRobot, Symantec and Genzyme.
“The SBA oversees America’s largest seed fund for small businesses in the STEM fields. The SBIR and the STTR programs allocate $2.5 billion a year to small innovators. By reserving a specific percentage of federal R&D funds for smaller firms, Uncle Sam encourages domestic small businesses to engage in high-growth priorities and build a strong national economy,” said SBA Administrator Maria Contreras-Sweet. “SBIR recipients have created breakthroughs in nanotechnology, robotics, mobile communications, genetic therapies, clean energy and space.”
Each SBIR Road Tour stop will be hosted by a local organization committed to supporting technology-based entrepreneurship, and will provide attendees with a face-to-face opportunity to talk directly to federal agency program managers and decision makers.
The first series will take place the week of March 23 with stops in Louisville, Kentucky, Nashville, Tennessee, Atlanta, Georgia, and Columbia, South Carolina. The next stops in the tour during the week of April 27th are Long Beach, Mississippi, Ruston, Louisiana, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Wichita, Kansas and Columbia, Missouri. Additional tours will hit the north central and northwest regions.
Small technology firms, innovators, scientists or researchers seeking more information on the SBIR Road Tour, including a listing of all states to be visited, should go to www.sbir.gov.