EnterpriseWorks Wins Stage One of the U.S. Small Business Administration’s 2024 Growth Accelerator Fund Competition
EnterpriseWorks awarded $50,000 in prize money for equitable access to entrepreneurship
CHAMPAIGN, IL – This week, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) announced the EnterpriseWorks incubator at the University of Illinois Research Park as a Stage One winner for the 2024 Growth Accelerator Fund Competition (GAFC). EnterpriseWorks will receive a $50,000 cash prize for its impactful and inclusive approach to nurturing a collaborative national innovation ecosystem to advance small business research and development (R&D) from ideas to the market.
By fostering connections between entrepreneurs, mentors, partners, philanthropies, corporations, investors, and other shared resources, GAFC 2024 catalyzes strategic ecosystem partnerships to build community and organizational capacity for the successful launch, growth, and scale of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)-based entrepreneurs.
EnterpriseWorks’ award-winning model, the Entrepreneurial Leadership Development Accelerator (ELDA), identifies and develops talent to develop and/or support academic co-founders in the formation, launch, and growth of new science-based startups.
“EnterpriseWorks’ mission is to launch, support, and advance startups that are commercializing disruptive technologies at the University of Illinois,” said Gerald O. Wilson, Ph.D., Director of Entrepreneurship. “The ELDA program aims to provide valuable non-technical support by training students who have business and/or entrepreneurial skills and backgrounds who can accelerate the success of tech startups.”
The ELDA program aims to recruit participant cohorts that are at least 50 percent women or underrepresented people in tech. EnterpriseWorks will collaborate with the University of Illinois Office of Technology Management (OTM) to identify sustainability and biotechnology technologies with potential for new venture formation.
During Stage One, EnterpriseWorks will work with University partners as well as organizations statewide to define participant profiles, recruiting, curriculum and mentorship processes.
“In my opinion, identifying and recruiting cofounders is the single biggest bottleneck to achieving real-world impact with UIUC research. Many—perhaps most—of our faculty inventors would welcome the opportunity to work with a grad student, postdoc, or external business-side lead to commercialize their technologies,” said Michelle Chitambar, Ph.D., Senior Technology Manager at OTM.
SBA welcomed Stage One submissions from a broad range of organizations with a collaborative vision to nurture a national ecosystem for equitable access to entrepreneurship. Winners of Stage One were selected through a multi-tier review panel process with experts in entrepreneurship, business, innovation, and strategic planning both inside and out of the federal government.
Stage Two offers an additional $50,000 to $150,000 in cash prizes for Growth Accelerator Partnerships. To learn more about Stage Two opportunities and to access the Growth Accelerator Fund Competition Guidelines, please visit https://www.americasseedfund.us/accelerators
With Stage Two funding, EnterpriseWorks plans to implement the ELDA program and curriculum, launching its first cohort in fall of 2024.
“From inequity and climate change, to supporting national defense and community-driven economic prosperity, the real opportunity is now to build up innovation ecosystems. EnterpriseWorks is eager to launch this program to build more startups taking commercially viable and societally impactful technologies developed from academic research and putting them into the marketplace, while developing a pool of entrepreneurial talent that had been relatively untapped,” Wilson said.
About EnterpriseWorks
EnterpriseWorks is a business incubator that supports University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and community technology entrepreneurs in all stages of their startup journeys. Its clients build and create disruptive science-based startups across a wide range of domains, reflecting the depth and breadth of university expertise. Since opening in 2003, EnterpriseWorks clients have raised more than $1.4 billion in outside capital and $200 million in non-diluted funding. EnterpriseWorks is located on campus at the University of Illinois Research Park in Champaign.