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Issue: 1158 Date: 11/1/2012
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Arch Grants on to Round Two
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Oct. 25 - ST. LOUIS - Just a few months after welcoming its first round of startups to town, the Arch Grants program is gearing up to find some more.
The local entrepreneurship competition, which awards $50,000 to promising startups to locate in downtown St. Louis, today will open up applications for its second round of financing. And it plans to grow from 15 recipients in the first round last spring to 20 this time.
"We have the funding in place," said executive director Sarah Spear. "And we feel like with one round under our belt we have the capacity to do more."
The program awards $50,000 - plus professional services, reduced rent and access to local universities and investors - to innovative startups that it feels can grow here in St. Louis. In May, it awarded its first round of grants to 15 recipients, $750,000 in all, funded by a mix of state and local funds and donations from private companies.
It'll unveil its $1 million Round Two today at the Startup Connection conference at the St. Louis Science Center, and start seeking applications on its website:
http://www.archgrants.org . Applications will be due Jan. 1 and will be put before panels of judges for review. Finalists will then be interviewed. Spear said they hope to pick winners in April, with the idea of companies moving to St. Louis in June.
Last year, Arch Grants received 420 applications from across the U.S. and several other countries. Spear said they're hoping for 1,000 this year, boosted by a second year of publicity and some success stories from the first round. One startup - Labor Voices - had joined the Clinton Global Initiative, Spear said. Another - app developer IDC Projects - had been invited by Microsoft to be a launch partner on Windows 8. Two, including IDC, won funding from the Capital Innovators program as well.
Overall, in the program's first three months, the 15 Arch Grants startups created 51 jobs and raised $645,000 in capital.
"I think the Arch Grants brand has been helpful in these startups raising additional funding," Spear said. "Other investors in the community see our support as a strong stamp of approval."
[St. Louis Post-Dispatch] |
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