Famous Amos Ingredients for Success Entrepreneurs Initiative

The City of Houston Economic Development Grants program provides flexible grant funding to qualifying organizations whose projects help stimulate business and commercial activity within Houston. Administered by the Mayor's Office of Economic Development, the program is intentionally adaptable. Rather than a standardized application with fixed award amounts and deadlines, each grant is individually negotiated and structured to align with the city's broader economic priorities and initiatives. This flexibility allows funding to be tailored to a project's unique scope and impact, but it also means there is no single application form or set timeline. Instead, applicants move through a multi-stage process: an initial outreach to the Economic Development Division, a project presentation and scoring against the city's priorities, cross-departmental discussions about layering the project with other city plans, a formal application including a financial pro-forma, and ultimately approval by City Council.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) provides a continuing opportunity for the rapid support of early-stage applied research to explore innovative new concepts with the potential for transformational and disruptive changes in energy technology. Spurring Projects to Advance Energy Research and Knowledge Swiftly (SPARKS) awards are intended to be flexible and may take the form of analyses or exploratory research that provides the agency with useful information for the subsequent development of focused technology programs. SPARKS awards may also support proof-of-concept research to develop a unique technology concept, either in an area not currently supported by the agency or as a potential enhancement to an ongoing focused technology program. Applications must propose concepts that are not covered by open ARPA-E focused FOAs and that do not represent incremental improvements over existing technology. SPARKS awards are defined as single-phase efforts of durations of 18 months or less with a total project cost of $500,000 or less and will be issued through Grants. ARPA-E expects to make approximately $10 million per fiscal year available for new awards, subject to the availability of appropriated funds. This announcement is purposely broad in scope to encourage the submission of the most innovative ideas in energy technology to support transformative energy R&D that complements ARPA-E’s primary mechanism, which is through the solicitation of research projects in focused technology programs.ARPA-E’s focused programs target specific areas of technology that the agency has identified through extensive interaction with the appropriate external stakeholders. The focused programs have significant potential impact on one or more of the statutory goals described in Section I.A of the FOA. Awards made in response to the solicitation for focused programs support the aggressive technical targets established in that solicitation. Taken in total, ARPA-E’s focused programs cover a broad swath of energy technologies and applications.

The Venture Pitch assistance micro-grant can reimburse up to $5000, spent on hiring an independent, third party to assist in the creation of an investor pitch deck, assemble a researched list of at least 5 investors to contact that includes the investor profile, the investment criteria, their portfolio, news releases of companies they invested in and create an advanced and well thought out financial and P&L model with market size, costs, pricing, sales key assumptions. To be eligible for this grant, applicants must have received a Phase I or Phase II SBIR/STTR award.

The MassTech Intern Partnership (MTIP) provides stipends to Massachusetts-based digital technology companies to help fund summer internships for Massachusetts college and graduate students. Administered by the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative and supported by the Healey-Driscoll administration and the state Legislature, the program reimburses participating companies for up to 50% of an intern's hourly wage, capped at $8 per hour and a maximum of $3,200 per intern. Eligible companies may apply for up to two interns per program period, while companies operating in priority focus areas may apply for up to three. The program's goal is to strengthen the state's tech talent pipeline and support startups and growing tech companies across the Commonwealth.

Workforce+ is a Performance Grant option that allows TVA to make an investment in competitive economic development projects focused on building a highly skilled and qualified workforce. Award amounts are paid directly to the company and are contingent on companies meeting the minimum requirements of the Performance Grant Program. Funding amounts are based upon approval of the company’s talent pipeline development plan.