Mountain View Façade Grant

Virginia Economic Development Incentive Grants are designed to attract competitive projects to Virginia. Projects must be significant, creating hundreds of jobs in Virginia by relocating headquarters, administrative, or service sector operations to Virginia. Depending on location and wages offered, companies must create between 200 and 400 jobs, ranging from 150 to 200 percent of the local prevailing wage, and meet minimum capital or job investment requirements. Award amounts vary and are calculated based on a return-on-investment analysis, jobs and wages, capital investment, regional unemployment and poverty figures, and more.

Now in its third year, this grant program will award 40 small businesses $5,000 each and two Grand Prize winners $20,000, fueling expansion, innovation, and long-term success across Nassau and Suffolk Counties. Small businesses with locations in Nassau or Suffolk Counties and 10 or fewer employees can apply.

The Arch Grants Startup Competition awards early-stage startups with $75,000 in equity-free grant funding — plus an additional $25,000 for relocation costs — in exchange for headquartering their business in St. Louis, Missouri for at least one year. Administered by Arch Grants, a St. Louis-based nonprofit, the competition conducts a worldwide search for innovative, scalable, and job-creating startups and evaluates applications through a panel of more than 400 industry experts from the St. Louis community and beyond. In addition to the cash grant, awardees gain eligibility for follow-on Growth Grants funding of up to $100,000, along with a la carte programming, fundraising support, talent acquisition assistance, exclusive discounts, and access to the Arch Grants network. The competition champions founders with idea-stage to pre-Series A companies, innovative and scalable business models, technology-enabled solutions, and diverse founding teams. To receive the grant, companies must locate their headquarters in the City of St. Louis for at least one year, have 51% of the founding team (or one founder and 51% of the team) living in St. Louis for the program year, and have at least one founder working on the company as their primary or full-time professional role.

In its 13th year, the Fast Pitch Competition from the Women Founders Network is open to U.S. businesses started by women. To be eligible, your business cannot have raised more than $750,000. Selected participants pitch their businesses in person and winners receive $25,000 grants.

The VCEDA Seed Capital Matching Fund provides new, startup, and emerging small businesses in Southwest Virginia's e-Region with dollar-for-dollar matching grants of up to $10,000 to support business launch and early-stage growth. Administered by the Virginia Coalfield Economic Development Authority (VCEDA), the program was established in 2017 to address access-to-capital barriers for small businesses in the region and to attract new small businesses from outside the e-Region to relocate there. Since launching, the program has assisted more than 200 new startups and has been credited with a 34-to-1 return on investment in an independent Virginia Tech study. To qualify, applicants must secure dollar-for-dollar matching funds from one or more other sources in at least the amount requested from VCEDA, operate a for-profit business that is no older than one year from the application date, currently employ or plan to employ fewer than 10 full-time employees, and intend to create or retain at least one full-time job within the e-Region within one year of application. Eligible business categories are reviewed and set annually by the VCEDA Board. Applications are typically reviewed twice per year, subject to fund availability. Interested applicants begin the process by working with their local Small Business Development Center (Mountain Empire Community College or Southwest Virginia Community College SBDC), which helps coordinate the application with VCEDA. Applicants are also required to obtain a letter or resolution of support from the county industrial development authority of the county where their project is located, or from the Norton Industrial Development Authority for businesses in the City of Norton.