Like most economic sectors, Rhode Island’s startup community has felt the sting of the pandemic. But outweighing the setbacks is a resiliency that is sparking growth and a sense that the local ecosystem is finding its financial footing.
The state’s universities and small size, which allows easy access to both workers and leadership, have always been assets to businesses. For startups, however, lack of investment funding and inconsistent support services have often limited opportunities.
But as this week’s cover story reports, support services are growing and funding, while still a challenge, is more available than it’s ever been.
RIHub, a nonprofit startup support service, says the number of businesses it is working with grew more than 25% last year from 2020.
And more telling, the Cambridge Innovation Center’s Providence location is the fastest growing of nine such CIC sites around the world. It is home to 145 startups and 500 workers – double the occupants before the pandemic.
Twenty of the startups are offshore wind companies, which offers hope the state may yet see tangible economic benefits from being home to the nation’s first offshore wind farm.
Whether many of those or other startups stay here as they grow remains in question, with the state still in the shadow of Boston and New York for funding and employment networks.
But the growth of virtual meetings gives the state more of a fighting chance to draw outside funding to help its successful entrepreneurs stay and grow here.