Together with Vermont entrepreneurs, Lawrence Miller, Vermont Secretary of Commerce and Community Development, today announced the launch of Startup Vermont on the one-year anniversary of the Startup America Partnership, a national effort to help startup businesses grow and jumpstart job creation. To date, Startup America Partnership has launched eight state affiliates, and is offering startups $1.2 billion in resources. Vermont is one of another eight states launching new Startup America affiliates today.
‘Government doesn’t create jobs. Businesses create jobs,’ said Lawrence Miller, ‘We’re proud to support this initiative and to urge the active participation of business leaders and entrepreneurs to utilize the resources of the Startup America Partnership.’
Startup Vermont (www.startupvt.org) is a private initiative driven by Vermont entrepreneurs. Its goal is to create a ‘front door’ for entrepreneurs looking to start businesses in the state. It will work to promote entrepreneurship, to support high growth startups, and to integrate and enhance Vermont’s ecosystem for the benefit of the state’s entrepreneurs.
According to the Kauffman Foundation, companies less than five years old accounted for all of the net job growthin our country between 1980 and 2005. Young firms’ success is often dependent on access to a variety of resources that help them grow.
With support from Green Mountain College and Ashoka’s Youth Venture, Cairn Cross, Co-Founder of Fresh Tracks Capital, helped Startup Vermont conduct an initial assessment of Vermont’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. The assessment was carried out by a group of Vermont entrepreneurs who have each started more than one business. It revealed several areas where the state’s economic ecosystem could be strengthened, including state government, availability of talent, access to capital, networking, and communications.
‘Two areas of the assessment jumped out at us as providing opportunities to support our state’s entrepreneurs,’ said Mr. Cross. ‘First, our group identified a mismatch between certain skills and talent available in the state as compared to the jobs available. This is particularly acute in the technology industry. Next, the assessment group expressed an interest in connecting and engaging small startup and early stage Vermont business enterprises with large successful Vermont businesses. We know that close connections between large established companies and startup businesses dramatically improve an economic ecosystem.’
To address both areas, Cross today announced that StartupVermont is working with Adam Bouchard and his Burlington Company AgilionApps to promote a major software development conference (www.burlingtonruby.com) to be held in Burlington this summer, focusing on Ruby an open source dynamic programming language.’ Also planned for this summer is a regional conference to be hosted by IBM that will provide speakers, information and insight from Startup America, established companies and other resources to engage and support young Vermont companies.
‘As a corporate partner of Startup America, and a major Vermont employer, IBM is pleased to support the launch of Startup Vermont’ said Janette Bombardier, senior location executive for IBM in Vermont. ‘Startup companies and entrepreneurs represent economic development growth opportunities for Vermont, in keeping with the state’s history as a hotbed for small business innovation and creative thinkers. IBM has made a significant investment to create programs that provide mentoring, skills development and business opportunities for software developers and startups nationwide working in areas such mobile technology, green energy, health care and transportation.’
Vermont joins seven other states Hawaii, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Rhode Island, and Virginia and the District of Columbia in joining the Startup America Partnership on January 31, 2012. States already participating are Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Tennessee, and Texas.
In December 2011, Startup America Partnership announced $475 million in new corporate commitments to help startups, pushing the total value of such offerings to over $1.2 billion. The new offerings were a direct response to specific requests made by the nearly 2,000 startups that have already registered with the Partnership. ‘With our latest round of commitments, we’ve continued to build out the offerings that startups have identified as being crucial to their growth,’ said Scott Case, CEO of the Startup America Partnership. ‘Every startup in the country should register now to utilize these resources and jumpstart their growth.’ Corporate commitments to the Startup America Partnership support the growth of startups in five key areas: Expertise, Services, Talent, Customers, and Capital.
The US Dept. of Commerce reports that the rate of new business startups declined steadily from 1980-2009.
About the Startup America Partnership
The Startup America Partnership was launched at the White House in response to President Obama’s call to celebrate, inspire, and accelerate high-growth entrepreneurship throughout the nation. The Partnership is bringing together an alliance of major corporations, funders, service providers, mentors and advisors working to dramatically increase the prevalence and success of high-growth enterprises in the U.S. AOL co-founder Steve Case chairs the Partnership and the Kauffman and Case Foundations are founding partners. American Express OPEN, Dell Inc., Intuit Inc., and Microsoft are sponsors. The Partnership will identify measure and report on the effectiveness of cross-sector collaboration in support of entrepreneurial ventures and its effect on job creation and growth. For more information on the Partnership, visit www.startupamericapartnership.organd follow at www.twitter.com/startupamericaand www.facebook.com/startupamerica.
Montpelier, VT - -January 31, 2012 ‘
Startup Vermont initiative launched to assist entrepreneurs
Submitted by tim
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