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Rochester Economic Development Fund

The fund, financed with $5 million of local-option sales-tax dollars, has doled out more than $2.5 million in loans, investments and grants to 15 early stage companies and business incubators. It is managed by Rochester Area Economic Development Inc. with oversight by the Rochester City Council. Any investment of $75,000 or more much be approved by the city council.

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Project Impact(s): Economic Development, Workforce Development

This project is in Available Phase.

  • Please scroll the following to view Beam's understanding of the project's strategy, indicators, expected results, and monitored metrics.
  • Please click this Link to get to the mainline view of the project.

 

Collaborators, Project Type, Impacts, Related Projects

 

Collaborators 

Lead Organization: Rochester-Area Economic Development Inc (RAEDI)

Contact: Gary Smith ; Email: TBD ; Phone: TBD

Known/Likely Collaborators: GoRoute ; Rochester-Area Economic Development Inc (RAEDI)

Potential Collaborators:

Related Projects

Impacts 

Major Impact: 

PlanScape Impacts :

Level 1: Economic Development, Workforce Development

Level 2:

DMC Impacts:

Community Health Impacts:

Type of Project

Planning  

 

 

 

Strategy
Unknown

 

Expected Results

The goal of the fund was to create a "sticky factor" to keep start-up companies here.

"It's hard to deny that we've put a dent in that," Smith said. "I think it (the fund) has exceeded our expectations."

In 2017, the fund provided $240,000 for four companies: Vyriad, $125,000; Craniovation, $50,000; Smart LabHood Solutions, $15,000 and SparkDJ, $50,000.

 

 

Metrics

Companies, combined to-date, have created 80 jobs. Fund companies currently occupy almost 48,000 square-feet of space in Rochester, and 56% of these companies are women or minority-owned with 67% having product sales.

“The EDF funding came at a critical moment for Spark DJ. It allowed us to finish the development of our product, launch, and generate revenue. EDF was key for us to solidify our presence in Rochester, and we encourage local entrepreneurs to consider exploring this funding source,” said James Jones Jr., co-founder and CEO of Spark DJ.

 

 

Last modified by support on 2021/09/05
Created by allnode on 2018/02/09

 

 

 

Site Information
Project Phase Definitions
The following defines the various project phases:
  1. Available - a product, program or service is in production
  2. Develop - program or application is being developed
  3. Plan - idea is solid, stakeholders are identified, and there is strong commitment to go forward from all parties.
  4. Concept Phase - idea scoped out with enough details to give an early sizing and/or to build a proof of concept
    demonstration
  5. Pre-concept Phase - an early idea or a requirement.
About Beam

Community Beam (dmcbeam.org) is a registry of private and public resources (organizations, projects, initiatives, programs) that underpin economic and social developments of greater Rochester:

  • For the commercial sector, we tend to register startup activities (new companies and new commercial projects) that bring diversification and high-impact opportunities to the area.
  • For the non-profit sector, we wish to shine light on all the organizations and services that otherwise labor under relative obscurity.
  • Our hope is that dmcbeam.org will encourage cross-sector collaborations and creative solutions.

While there are a number of registries in the community, dmcbeam.org's  distinct value is to pilot a database with a data structure and categorizations that answer the questions such as: What organizations or projects/programs in our community that have purported relevance with some of the over-arching focuses put forward by initiatives such as DMC, J2G and Health Improvements?

This database could be used as one of the ways to explore the capacities of the community. If you are someone on an exploratory journey to learn about the greater Rochester community. dmcbeam.org could be an interesting first step.

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