Startup Factory gets state grant to establish statewide network

The Iowa Economic Development Authority gave the ISU Research Park a $200,000 grant last week to bring the Startup Factory model to community and private colleges elsewhere in the state.

The grant is part of the state’s Entrepreneurial Investments Awards, which provides financial aid to groups that provide business and startup support for fledgling companies in Iowa.

The Startup Factory will use the funds to open four branches at colleges in north and northwest Iowa, using existing resources from local Small Business Development Center sites. Those branches will have access to the Startup Factory’s existing mentoring and investor network, along with other ISU resources.

The Startup Factory has yet to confirm which colleges it plans to partner with.

Startup Factory Executive Director Bill Adamowski said the plan is to build a network of startup incubators across the state, pooling their resources together to support local startups across Iowa.

He said the curriculum laid out at the Startup Factory will remain the same across the others in the state, but the satellite locations will be in frequent contact with the Research Park location over the span of a cohort.

“Based on the success of the Startup Factory we’ve had here in Ames, we’re sort of spreading the wealth and trying to leverage the things we’ve learned to drive economic development throughout the state,” he said.

Adamowski said there isn’t a timeline yet as to when the branches will be established, but he hopes to launch them in conjunction with the next Startup Factory cohort at the beginning of 2018.

ISU’s Startup Factory, a yearlong program helping students and ISU-affiliated people bring ideas to market, began its first cohort last year and has raised more than $5 million in private and public investment among all of its startups.

Read the article at amestrib.com