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Issue: 1075 Date: 3/31/2011
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Nixon: MO gets $27 million in incentives program
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| Marcia Mellitz, Vice President for Business Development at the Coalition for Plant and Life Sciences, gives Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon a tour of the Center for Emerging Technologies (CET) facilities before the announcement of a $27 million investment in small-business growth and job creation in Missouri at a press conference on March 22. |
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ST. LOUIS (AP) - Missouri will have access to $26.9 million in State Small Business Credit Initiative funds, money that Gov. Jay Nixon says will help spur small business growth and create jobs. The U.S. Treasury Department and Nixon announced the approval of Missouri's application for the loan program on Tuesday.
Most of the money, allocated through the Treasury Department's $1.5 billion State Small Business Credit Initiative, will be used to plug what's long been called a gaping hole in Missouri's high-tech sector: Early-stage financing for startups.
In a visit to the Center for Emerging Technologies in St. Louis, Nixon said that $16.9 million of the federal money will be used to create a new set of state funds to help high-tech startups grow, "from seed capital to venture capital." The other $10 million will be put into a loan fund for general businesses with fewer than 500 employees, to help them expand.
The high-tech funding has long been a priority of St. Louis-area business groups and high-tech incubators, who note that Missouri spends far less on state seed capital than most of its neighbors. That in turn makes it more likely that medical and biotech companies must leave Missouri to attract the kind of private venture capital they need to grow. This federal money is a chance to start to change that, Nixon said.
"Seed capital, early-stage funding, venture capital, these are all areas where there are huge needs," he said. "These are the areas where dollars are directly needed."
Marcia Mellitz, vice president for business development at the Coalition for Plant and Life Sciences, agrees. She and others have been pushing for this kind of money for years, and, while it wouldn't replace broader initiatives like the proposed Missouri Science and Innovation Reinvestment Act, it's a big step in the right direction.
"If you don't invest in these companies, they're not going to grow here," she said. "This fund enables us to make some big investments in companies where we're going to see a return. "The other loan program - the Grow Missouri Loan Participation Fund - is geared towards small businesses of all kinds, to help them expand and add employees.
Both are designed to attract private investment as well; the Treasury Department hopes that$10 in private money will come for every $1 in public money. The public money must be lent out within two years. Missouri businesses can begin applying for the loans April 8.
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| Gov. Nixon tours CET with tenant Dr. Francis (Duke) Creighton, co-founder of Pulse Therapeutics, Inc. (Photos by Bill Greenblatt/UPI) |
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