White House announces $2B for Job-Creating Startups

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

December 08, 2011

We Can’t Wait: Obama Administration Announces $2 Billion in Resources to Support Job-Creating Startups

Today, the White House announced administrative and private sector actions that will help entrepreneurs grow their businesses and create jobs by increasing their access to capital and resources. The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) is moving forward with launching a $1 billion Early Stage Innovation Fund, originally announced as part of Startup America, which will provide matching capital to Small Business Investment Companies (SBICs), targeting early-stage small businesses seeking private institutional capital. Today, the White House is also hosting the first board meeting of the Startup America Partnership, where board members will announce commitments from more than 50 private-sector partners to deliver over $1 billion in value – from free software to free consulting and legal services – to 100,000 startups over the next three years. The President also renewed his call for Congress to work on a bipartisan basis to develop ideas from his American Jobs Act plan that will help our small and growing businesses access capital while continuing to protect investors. Specifically, the President has called for increasing limits on “miniofferings,” allowing “crowdfunding,” and phasing in some requirements for small firms as they go public.

Additional commitments announced today include:

• Startup America Policy Challenge. In the spirit of open and participatory government, the White House will use online platforms to ask entrepreneurs and the broader public how to accelerate entrepreneurial innovation in three priority industries: healthcare, clean energy, and education. Students and other solvers will then compete to translate the best ideas into “Policy Business Plans,” which will be shared with relevant Cabinet Secretaries from the Depts. of Health and Human Services, Energy, and Education.
• Administration Commits to Advance Entrepreneurship Education. The Dept. of Education and the Dept. of Labor are advancing a youth entrepreneurship agenda that infuses entrepreneurship education into a range of existing programs involving K-12 education, career and technical education, community colleges, universities, and low-income youth. As part of this effort, the Dept. of Education is launching a new National Education Startup Challenge, inviting middle school, high school, and college students to develop an innovative solution to an education problem and prepare a business plan for a new company or non-profit organization to deliver that solution.
• NFTE Expands Entrepreneurship Education for Underserved Youth. The Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) provides a first-class entrepreneurship education for at-risk high school students from low-income communities. Today, NFTE and the Pearson Foundation are launchingConnect, a free online community for teacher collaboration and training focused on entrepreneurship education, fulfilling a commitment made at the launch of Startup America earlier this year. The Connectcommunity is open to all educators who want to infuse entrepreneurship education best practices into their classroom, with a goal of at least 5,000 registered educators in the next 24 months. In addition, SuperCamp/Quantum Learning Network, one of the top academic summer camp providers in America, is partnering with NFTE to making its BizCamps widely available to young people across the country.
• Junior Achievement Announces Entrepreneurial Reinvention. Junior Achievement, the nation’s oldest and largest youth entrepreneurship program, is announcing a historic reinvention of its century-old JA Company Program to be more contemporary and relevant to today’s dynamic entrepreneurial landscape. Supported by global technology leader Emerson, this program is designed to reach at least 50,000 students over the next five years.
• Over 100 Community College Presidents Commit to Entrepreneurial Transformation. The National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship (NACCE) is launching the Presidents for Entrepreneurship Forum, through which community college presidents make specific commitments to advance entrepreneurship and the impact these colleges have on the economic well-being of their communities. Over 100 community college presidents have signed on at launch, with the goal of at least 600 by the end of 2012, comprising around half of all community colleges in the U.S.