Quad Cities Start-Up Firm Headlines Three New Grant Award Recipients
CHICAGO – Continuing to deliver on his Opportunity Returns pledge to promote entrepreneurship and innovation in the Northwest region, Gov. Rod Blagojevich today announced that the Northwest Region Entrepreneurship Center (NWREC) has awarded three new challenge grant awards to area companies. The challenge grants are $5,000 awards designed to help accelerate the achievement of a critical milestone for young business ventures using the e-center’s services. State and local officials gathered today at the Quad City Development Group in Rock Island to present one of those awards to a local start-up firm named Mob Shopper, a Quad City based developer of a new targeted direct marketing system that enables businesses to reach their customers instantaneously by sending targeted messages to their mobile telephones. The company currently consists of only two employees but plans to grow significantly by the end of the year.
“At the very heart of the Opportunity Returns strategy is a belief that entrepreneurs and small business drive our economy and will continue to do so in the years ahead. By investing in young firms with high growth potential and giving them the resources they need to take their ventures to the next level, we’re not only fostering their individual success, but unleashing the collective economic potential of this entire region,” Gov. Blagojevich said.
The challenge grants are one of a number of specialized resources the entrepreneurship center offers its clients. The awards assist entrepreneurs or small businesses with obtaining professional services for comprehensive business plan assistance, evaluation of a proposed startup or expansion, or other accelerated support purposes. Award funding is determined based on the potential for successful achievement of a significant business milestone for client firms. Applications are awarded based on their display of project viability, growth potential, public purpose or other merit-based factors.
Two other promising young firms also received challenge grant awards. Red Medical, based in Kewanee, manufactures and sells patented Vacuum Splint products to the emergency medical market in the U.S. and Europe. Savanna Cellars, based in Savanna, will be converting 33-acres of land at the former Savanna Army Depot into a winery, vineyard and tourism destination site.
To date, ninety high-growth companies across the state have received $440,000 in challenge grants from the Entrepreneurship Network.
“The challenge grant is often a key difference maker in helping small or startup companies clear some of the tough hurdles they face. By enabling our clients to obtain important outside services, the challenge grants really augment the work we do here at the center. Once the grant is awarded, we continue to follow-up with the client, ready to offer our advice and assistance to help them achieve their projected growth and put them in the best position to succeed over the near and long-term,” NWREC Director Don Henry said.
The Northwest Region Entrepreneurship Center (NWREC) is designed to act as a regional hub that coordinates all small business development, entrepreneurship training and development activity in the Northwest Illinois region, and provides entrepreneurs with the tools they need to make their ventures successful. The center builds on the existing infrastructure of the Small Business Development Center Network, the Illinois Technology Enterprise Center Network and the Manufacturing Extension Center Network.
The NWREC is one of 13 entrepreneurship centers Gov. Blagojevich has opened during his first two years in office and reflects the Governor’s priority to strengthen the state’s capacity to develop promising young businesses into market successes and help entrepreneurship act as a more dynamic engine of growth.
“Gov. Blagojevich and I strongly believe that the talents and ingenuity of small firms are worth investing in. Promising firms like these often have all the tools to succeed in the marketplace, but simply need an infusion of capital at a critical stage to get off and running. These grants may be small, but when it comes to promoting economic growth and prosperity in the region, they deliver big,” State Senator Mike Jacobs (D-East Moline) said.
“This is another example of how our local economy continues to expand. Small businesses are our economic engines and, with the support Gov. Blagojevich is providing, they will continue creating more jobs and better opportunities for people throughout our region,” State Rep. Patrick Verschoore (D-Rock Island) said.
“The entrepreneurship centers and the challenge grants they are providing through Opportunity Returns are really a wonderful representation of the new model for economic development in Illinois. That model dedicates resources at the community level where they are needed most and works to create more genuine economic opportunity one person at a time, one business at a time and one job at a time,” DCEO Director Jack Lavin said.
Gov. Blagojevich’s Opportunity Returns regional economic development strategy is the most comprehensive approach to creating jobs in Illinois’ history. Since a one-size-fits-all approach to economic development just doesn’t work, the Governor has divided the state into 10 regions – each with a regional team that is empowered and expected to rapidly respond to opportunities and challenges. Opportunity Returns is about tangible, specific actions to make each region more accessible, more marketable, more entrepreneurial and more attractive to businesses. It is about upgrading the skills of the local workforce, increasing the access to capital, opening new markets, improving infrastructure, and creating and retaining jobs. Opportunity Returns is about successfully partnering with companies and communities, both large and small, to help all of Illinois reach its economic potential.