Science Venture Studio (SVS) Awarded $50,000 GAFC Grant from SBA

SVS to use funds to launch accelerator for women in STEM

Science Venture Studio (SVS), a Northwest Arkansas-based organization launched to help Arkansas science- and technology-based startups apply for non-dilutive federal funding, has been awarded a $50,000 prize in the U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Growth Accelerator Fund Competition (GAFC).

“The Science Venture Studio team is greatly appreciative of SBA’s support through the GAFC prize funding. We are committed to helping close the funding gap between breakthrough science and commercialization for companies for founders of all backgrounds,” said Katie Thompson, Director of SVS. 

SVS, an affiliate program of Startup Junkie Foundation, will use the prize funding to launch a new accelerator program called EMPOWER focused on women in STEM. 

“The GAFC award will allow us to launch a 16-week accelerator titled ‘EMPOWER’ that will be focused on women in STEM,” Thompson added. “The SVS team will walk hand-in-hand with these female scientists to help them understand the intellectual merit, broader impacts, and commercial opportunities of their research as they expand their impact.”

The SBA recently concluded its 2021 competition for the GAFC and the SBIR Catalyst competition, a new component aimed at spurring investment in underrepresented communities within the innovation economy at scale, receiving a combined total of $5.4 million in awards to innovation-focused entrepreneur support organizations (ESOs) with programs to speed the launch, growth, and scale of deep-tech small businesses across the country. 

Startup Junkie Foundation sister organization Conductor, based in Conway, was also awarded a GAFC prize for its health sciences bootcamp. The two represent Arkansas’ only GAFC prize recipients this year.  

“These awards will solidify Arkansas as a stronger player in the innovation economy and increase our competitiveness in winning SBIR and STTR opportunities-especially in underrepresented communities,” said SBA Arkansas District Director Edward Haddock

“By winning the Growth Accelerator Fund Competition (GAFC), Science Venture Studio and The Conductor demonstrate the tenacity of our state’s innovation-focused entrepreneur support organizations,” he added. 

In all, the SBA awarded $5.4 million in prizes to support inclusive entrepreneurship in the innovation ecosystem. This year’s winners came from 48 states, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, and the District of Columbia and were awarded based on their proposals for innovative ideas that inclusively support entrepreneurs researching and developing STEM-related innovations.

Startup Junkie Foundation, with funding from the Walton Family Foundation and in collaboration with Innovate Arkansas, the Northwest Arkansas Council and the University of Arkansas, launched SVS last summer to help Arkansas science- and technology-based startups apply for and obtain federal grant funding. The program, led by serial entrepreneur and technologist Katie Thompson, provides in-the-trenches assistance to securing federal funding targeted at early-stage commercialization.