SBA, city celebrate two Cedar Rapids startup accelerators receiving grants

CEDAR RAPIDS - Inventors, tinkerers and other creative types surely are still working out in the barn or down in the basement to come with the next big idea.

These days, too, startup accelerator centers that support creative people are places where ideas can get traction that turns into businesses, jobs and wealth.

On Monday, U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) officials came to Cedar Rapids to award two $50,000 grants, one to the Entrepreneurial Development Center Inc. (EDC) and the second to the Iowa Startup Accelerator (ISA).

The grants were among 80 awarded nationwide as part of the SBA's Growth Accelerator Fund Competition, two of which were awarded in Iowa, both in Cedar Rapids.

Jayne Armstrong, SBA district director, said several other cities across the nation had more than one entity that garnered one of the 80 SBA grants, but nearly all of those cities were much larger than Cedar Rapids.

Armstrong said the two Cedar Rapids awards were a 'real testament” to the work that Curt Nelson, EDC president and chief executive officer, and Eric Engelmann, president and chief executive officer of Geonetric Inc. and founder and managing director of ISA, have done.

Cities with multiple awards other than Cedar Rapids were Phoenix, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Boston, New Orleans, New York City, Memphis, Portland, Ore., and Louisville as were smaller cities, Boulder, Colo., and Portland, Maine.

Engelmann said the new SBA grant was the second for his accelerator, and he said the center would use the grant to attract a wider group, including women and minorities, into the 'circle” of entrepreneurs that now support and participate in the business startup effort.

Nelson said the EDC would use its SBA grant to support its Consumer Goods Founder Group, 63 percent of the participants of which currently are women, he said.

At a ceremony Monday morning at the Geonetric Inc. building in New Bohemia, which houses the Iowa Startup Accelerator, Mayor Ron Corbett said that he has been 'preaching” for some time that the 'city is open for business.” He said that means supporting an 'entrepreneurial culture” in addition to trying to recruit companies to come to the city.

City Manager Jeff Pomeranz said Curt Nelson and the EDC have created a model for economic development entities across the nation, and he said Engelmann was a 'tremendous visionary” that other cities in Iowa are in 'real awe” of.