SE Greenhouse recognized by SBA, to receive $50K

SOCIAL ENTERPRISE GREENHOUSE, which celebrated its 2015 SEG accelerator graduates earlier this year, was awarded $50,000 by the U.S. Small Business Administration as part of a national effort to support business accelerators. / COURTESY SOCIAL ENTERPRISE GREENHOUSE
SOCIAL ENTERPRISE GREENHOUSE, which celebrated its 2015 SEG accelerator graduates earlier this year, was awarded $50,000 by the U.S. Small Business Administration as part of a national effort to support business accelerators. / COURTESY SOCIAL ENTERPRISE GREENHOUSE

PROVIDENCE – The U.S. Small Business Administration on Tuesday announced the winners of its second annual Growth Accelerator Fund Competition.

Providence-based Social Enterprise Greenhouse, also known as SE Greenhouse, is one of 80 winners, representing 39 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Each of the honorees will receive a $50,000 cash prize from the SBA.

“SBA is continuing to make advances in supporting unique organizations that help the startup community grow, become commercially viable, and have a real and sustained economic impact,” said SBA Administrator Maria Contreras-Sweet. “Through the wide-spread outreach of this competition we are able to reach entrepreneurial ecosystems across the country. My commitment is to make our resources available to 21st-century entrepreneurs where they are, and these accelerators, also known as incubators and innovation hubs, are the gathering place for today’s innovators and disruptors.”

The 80 winners were chosen from 180 finalists, which had been culled from an original pool of more than 400 applicants, according to an SBA press release.

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SE Greenhouse was recognized for the SEG Accelerator, which has graduated 58 ventures since its 2011 inception. The accelerator is a 12-week, blended-learning immersion program designed and offered in partnership with Brown University’s Social Innovation Initiative.

“We are honored to be recognized by the SBA,” said Accelerator Director Emily Wanderer. “The cash support will enable us to more actively recruit entrepreneurs to our program,” with the result of more ventures being accelerated in 2016.

“We are happy to bring our expertise and online learning resources to the SEG Accelerator,” said Brown’s Social Innovation Director Alan Harlam. “We believe that through building the accelerator partnership … Brown is helping to create jobs and opportunities for all, in Rhode Island and beyond.”

In accepting the cash prize, SE Greenhouse would be required to provide quarterly reporting to the SBA for one year, which the SBA says it will use to build its database of accelerators, their economic impact, and to develop “long-term relationships with the startups and constituents in these innovative and entrepreneurial communities,” according to the release.

SE Greenhouse is Rhode Island’s only business accelerator, as Betaspring – previously a well-known accelerator – changed its model earlier this year to RevUp by Betaspring, which focuses on more mature companies already generating revenue.

But there are several other co-working spaces and business incubators scattered around the state, which – like Contreras-Sweet said – are similar to accelerators.

SE Greenhouse focuses wholly on socially conscious ventures and aims to create “positive social and economic impacts by supporting social entrepreneurs and enterprises with the tools and networks they need to thrive,” according to its mission.

The SBA says it holds the competition to draw attention and funding to parts of the country where there are gaps in the “entrepreneurial ecosystems.”

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