EDA ANNOUNCES
$15 MILLION TO ADVANCE INNOVATION ACROSS AMERICA
Potential Regional Innovation Strategies Program Applicants:
Ensuring that entrepreneurs across the nation have access to
the tools they need to move their ideas and inventions from their laboratories
and garages to the market is a top priority for President Obama and his Administration.
To
continue advancing this key priority, today, the Economic Development
Administration released the Federal
Funding Opportunity (FFO) and began accepting applications for the 2016
round of Regional Innovation Strategies (RIS) Program funding.
In this 2016 round, a total of $15 million in Federal funding is available to create and expand
cluster-focused proof-of-concept and commercialization programs and early-stage
seed capital funds through the i6 Challenge and the Seed Fund Support (SFS)
Grant competition, respectively. Under
this FFO, $13 million is available for i6 Challenge grants and $2 million is
available for SFS grants.
The i6 Challenge grants help regions build capacity for
turning ideas into products and ultimately into viable companies that create jobs. The program
was launched in 2010 as part of the White House’s Startup America Initiative
and is now in its sixth iteration.
The Seed Fund Support Grants (SFS) competition addresses
another need of growth-oriented entrepreneurs: access to capital. Investments
made through this program support feasibility, planning, formation, or launch
of equity-based seed capital funds that invest in startups during their
earliest, critical stages.
To
learn more about this year’s Regional Innovation Strategies program, EDA
strongly encourages potential applicants to register for and attend
the post-launch webinar, hosted by SSTI, on May 5, 2016,
at 2:00pm Eastern Time.
During this webinar, EDA staff will present a detailed overview of the
2016 RIS FFO and will take questions.
This webinar will be made available online after the event.
For
potential applicants, please note that the application period is open for 60
days and will close at 11:59pm Eastern Time on June 24, 2016.
To
stay up-to-date on the latest RIS news, please sign up for EDA’s newsletter.
The
RIS program is managed by EDA’s Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship
(OIE), which is dedicated to helping communities build and develop innovation-
and entrepreneurship-based ecosystems that are the foundation of today’s and
tomorrow’s growing, resilient economies.
|