Austin Chamber of Commerce

The Austin Chamber of Commerce provides leadership that facilitates the creation of a prosperous regional economy and effective advocacy for its more than 3,000 members.

Innovate Austin is an initiative launched by the Austin Chamber of Commerce in the Fall of 2013 to provide leadership that focuses on the strategic drivers and impact of innovation, including access to talent and capital, growing and diversifying the innovation ecosystem, and leveraging local universities for increased commercialization.

U.S. Small Business Administration

 Office of Investment and Innovation:

Small Business Investment Company (SBIC):

SBIC is a growth capital program with over $25 billion of assets under management spread across 303 private-public partnerships comprised of private equity, venture capital and structured lending funds, making it one of the largest fund of funds focused on capitalizing American small businesses. With authorization to invest $4 billion annually, the program operates at a zero-subsidy cost to the American taxpayer. Further development of SBIC’s $1 billion Impact Investment Fund and $1 billion Early Stage Initiative, is key to enhance capital flows to where investment gaps are widest. 

Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR):

SBIR and STTR entail the government's largest innovation effort focused on small business, effectively making the collective ~$2.5B/year the largest STEM seed funding pool in the world, America’s Seed Fund. Since inception, ~150k grants totaling ~$42 billion have been awarded to small firms that participate in federally funded R&D via 11 agencies and 100's of research institutions. In addition to expanding the frontiers of human knowledge, a key end goal of the programs is to commercialize the resulting inventions. The programs touch, catalyze and seed the creation of STEM driven innovations in industries critical to the nation's long term competitiveness and growth - from nanotech to robotics to mobile communications to genetic therapies to clean energy to advanced weapons to space exploration.

WeWork

Our Mission:
To create a world where people work to make a life, not just a living.