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Tom Dalton of Innovate Arkansas: Funding for Early Stage Startups Has Increased

2 min read

Innovate Arkansas director Tom Dalton believes funding for early stage, tech-based startup ventures in Arkansas has increased dramatically in the past six years.

Innovate Arkansas is the nonprofit venture from the Arkansas Economic Development Commission and Winrock International whose mission is to nurture those early stage, tech-based startups and help grow the state’s “knowledge economy.”

Dalton wrote in the INOV8 blog on Tuesday that despite the perception of some, funding opportunities for startups looking for early traction are readily available now in Arkansas: 

Of the more than 450 startups that have contacted Innovate Arkansas, between 80 and 85 still are active and working toward various degrees of commercial viability. Of that latter number, 29 companies can be described as possessing the key elements to reach scalability; that is, they have the business model, management team and product market fit to allow for rapid market growth.

What has also developed in the last seven years, and this has been the added benefit resulting from Innovate Arkansas, has been the increase in the number of private investment options in Arkansas.

These options have included the growth of FAF and the creation of many new private investment groups.

Dalton notes the recent additions to the state’s startup landscape of several new angel investment groups and notes the matching money made available through the Arkansas Development Finance Authority.

What the Arkansas startup ecosystem needs more of, he says, is long-term investment:

There is a recurring area of concern for Arkansas in the long run, and that is in acquiring later stage investment funding for those startups that have developed a viable product, are producing increased sales revenue, but are not yet turning a profit. It is in these later stages that venture funding from firms outside of Arkansas will be needed.

Read the full post in the INOV8 blog.

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