Missouri wants to match investors’ funds for promising young startups; founders have until Monday to apply

A pair of competitive startup funding programs backed by the State of Missouri are poised to boost companies with Show Me potential, said Jack Scatizzi as the deadline rapidly nears for this year’s IDEA Funds.

“We invest both state and federal funding into the most promising high growth-potential startups,” said Scatizzi, executive director of the Missouri Technology Corporation (MTC). “These companies usually leverage technology or innovation.”

 [pullquote]

To support Missouri’s innovation and technology-focused entrepreneurs grow their companies, the Missouri Technology Corporation operates a state-sponsored venture capital fund (IDEA Fund).

The IDEA Fund is tasked with making direct investments in the state’s most promising early-stage high growth companies in a manner that is catalytic and drives economic development within the state.

For investments to be catalytic in nature and offset the state’s risk, MTC requires matching funds from private investors — generally, local angel investors or Midwest-focused seed-stage venture funds.

[/pullquote]

IDEA Funds branch into two categories focused on commercialization: TechLaunch, a pre-seed fund designed for companies that have raised less than $250,000 of outside capital (It supports up to $100,000 for the purpose of business development); and Seed Capital Co-Investment, which was created for companies with between $500,000 to $2 million in outside capital.

MTC’s 2022 fiscal budget includes $2 million to allocate among qualifying Missouri businesses.

The deadline to apply for funding is Feb. 7. Click here to learn more about TechLaunch and here to explore Seed Capital Co-Investment.

For a startup to be considered for either program, prospective companies must have a focus area in animal health, applied engineering (software), biomedical science, defense and homeland security, or plant science.

“Those categories identify the core areas of the state,” Scatizzi said, noting Missouri’s rich track record within such fields as agtech, insurance tech, fintech, and its growing influence in industries like geospatial.

MTC is a public-private partnership created by the Missouri General Assembly to promote entrepreneurship via a state-sponsored venture capital program — specifically boosting early-stage, high growth-potential companies to produce outsized economic development returns for the state.

The IDEA Fund co-investment programs were developed to support Missouri’s early-stage, entrepreneurs developing technologies, and creating jobs across Missouri. The direct investment programs support technology startups through matching equity or convertible debt investments for the purpose of technology and business development.

Over the past decade, MTC has invested more than $45 million into almost 140 early-stage Missouri-based high-growth technology-focused companies, which have raised over $1.1 billion in additional private capital.

MTC uses a matching fund requirement to ensure the state’s capital will be invested in the Missouri’s most attractive early-stage investment opportunities.

In 2020, MTC’s portfolio companies created more than 480 new jobs and employed over 1,000 people for an average of 17 people employed per portfolio company with almost a third of MTC’s portfolio companies employing at least 20 full-time employees.

“This is a way to drive economic development, specifically to create higher paying jobs,” Scatizzi said.

Click here to see MTC’s full portfolio.

Among the Kansas City startups to take advantage of MTC’s co-investment funding: backstitch, Little Hoots, Moblico, Mycroft, Pathfinder Health Innovations, PayIt, Popbookings, Proviera Biotech, SCD Probiotics, Sickweather, SoftVu, StoryUp (Healium), Transportant, Venture360, and VideoFizz. Today, many of these startups are now listed among Kansas City’s Top VC-Backed Companies.