Startup America Partnership; New Commitments FACT SHEET
April 20, 2011
New corporate commitments
American Express
American Express OPEN is proud to be offering over $125 Million in value to Startup America Partnership member companies. As part of its participation in the program, OPEN will be offering qualified businesses with special access and advantaged pricing to a suite of products and services designed to help businesses attract and retain customers and improve cash flow.
For over 20 years, OPEN has been delivering products and services specifically designed for Small Businesses and is a leading force in the support of Small Businesses in the United States. In 2010, American Express OPEN launched Small Business Saturday, a day to educate consumers of the benefits of ‘Shopping Small’. As part of its commitment to the Startup America Partnership, OPEN will be featuring new businesses in the 2011 Small Business Saturday movement.
Cisco
The Cisco Entrepreneur Institute intends to become a member of, commit to, and contribute to the Startup America Partnership’s goals. By joining the Partnership, the Institute also fulfills its mission to support entrepreneurs by sharing the world’s best practical business insights; facilitate collaboration between entrepreneurs, governments, and businesses; and show the value of technology in business.
The Cisco Entrepreneur Institute is a global program focused on enabling entrepreneurship. Working with local public and private sector organizations, Cisco is helping communities and nations to harness the power of entrepreneurship and innovation for economic and social prosperity. The program works to improve the success rate of new entrepreneurial ventures and to connect entrepreneurs with the resources, technologies and contacts to build successful businesses by providing:
- Entrepreneur-specific business knowledge, including business planning skills and Cisco’s Internet business solutions;
- A resource center where entrepreneurs can find sound business advice, mentoring, and services;
- Internet business solutions for small and medium-sized enterprises; and
- A technology-enabled human network.
Ernst & Young
As the world leader in advising, guiding and recognizing Entrepreneurs, Ernst & Young LLP is very pleased to join Startup America Partnership to help accelerate the growth of high-potential Speedup companies. The firm has made a substantial commitment valued at more than $7.5 million to work with Startup America. Ernst & Young will leverage its own professionals and the Entrepreneur Of The Year (“EOY”) program and networks to provide mentoring, access to relevant thought leadership, research and other analytical tools designed to enable these Speedups to exploit their growth opportunities more fully. Startup America Speedups will benefit from a number of on-line resources and live events featuring advice from EY professionals and seasoned entrepreneurs; live coaching sessions on what it takes to build an “Exceptional Enterprise” and to prepare a company for a financing, IPO or other strategic transaction; the latest research on venture capital financing and introductions to appropriate investors; information on compensation strategies to recruit and retain top talent; and, opportunities for certain Speedup companies to participate in regional EOY Awards Galas and the annual Ernst & Young Strategic Growth Forum in California each November.
First Data
Will offer discounts on processing services including credit and debit acceptance as well as point-of-sale terminals to Startup America Partnership member companies.
Around the world, every second of every day, First Data makes payment transactions secure, fast and easy for merchants, financial institutions and their customers. First Data leverages its vast product portfolio and expertise to drive customer revenue and profitability. Whether the choice of payment is by debit or credit card, gift card, check or mobile phone, online or at the checkout counter, First Data takes every opportunity to go beyond the transaction.
Google
Google is committing up to $100 million to the Startup America Partnership for entrepreneurs to promote their companies with Google advertising over the next year. Startup America participants will be able to use Google advertising platforms like AdWords and Boost and receive a $1,000 Google match for every $1,000 they spend between June 1, 2011 and June 1, 2012. The match is available to those Startup America participants new to Google advertising.
HP
To further its initial commitment to the Startup America Partnership announced as part of January’s launch at the White House, HP, the largest Information Technology company in the world by revenue, will offer discounts across its commercial product categories (laptops, desktops, workstations, Palm smartphones, tablets, printers, wireless routers, servers, and more), to Startup America Partnership member companies. HP’s commitment – and potential savings for startups – is estimated to be $100M over three years. Details will be announced through the Startup America program once the application process to become a Startup America Partnership member begins. To receive updates from HP, visit the HP Startup Central website or follow on Twitter at @hpstartup.
HP Startup Central is a collaborative business ecosystem supporting entrepreneurship by connecting startup businesses with the tools, technology, and business support that powers their commercial success. Together with the HP Learning Initiative for Entrepreneurs (HP LIFE), a global initiative that trains students, aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners to harness the power of IT to establish and grow their business, HP Startup Central is proud to support the spirit of entrepreneurship that has built HP, and that makes our country strong. Learn more at http://www.hp.com/go/startupcentral
IndieGoGo
IndieGoGo (www.indiegogo.com), the world's largest open funding platform with more than 24,000 campaigns in 159 countries, has agreed to offer Startup America-accredited entrepreneurs the opportunity to raise $30 million of funding at a 50% discount on campaigns fees. This total will be cumulative over a three-year period. In addition, IndieGoGo will feature their campaigns on a Startup America Partner Page on the company's website. Finally, IndieGoGo will provide Startup America's entrepreneurs education on crowd funding techniques for both seeding and sustaining their ventures.
Intuit
Intuit Inc. is proud to invest $37 million in products and services to promote high-growth entrepreneurship across the country in partnership with President Obama’s Startup America campaign. Intuit’s commitments include special offers and pricing for the company’s flagship products and services, including QuickBooks Online, Intuit Payroll Services, QuickBooks Merchant Services and Intuit Websites for Startup America Partnership member companies. For more than twenty years, Intuit has been a leading provider of solutions for small and mid-sized businesses to help them succeed. This investment builds on Intuit’s commitment to help small businesses. In 2008, Intuit launched is highly successful Love a Local Business campaign (www.lovealocalbusiness.com), a program where small businesses and their fans nominate their favorite local businesses online, entering them for a chance to win grants. The program has already awarded more than $500,000 in funding to small businesses nationwide to both help them get back on their feet and celebrate their success to date.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn will serve as the platform on which Startup America Partnership member companies can build their identity, grow their networks, and gain insights to help make them more productive and successful. LinkedIn will also contribute training, services, and products to Startup America Partnership member companies.
Microsoft
Microsoft will offer its BizSpark program, established in 2008, to all qualified software startups in the Startup America Partnership. The program currently serves more than 38,000 startups worldwide, including 13,000 in the United States. It provides access to Microsoft’s extensive software portfolio free of charge for three years including support, training and access to Windows Azure, Microsoft’s Cloud Services Platform. Participants are also connected to a global network of over 700,000 mentors, partners and investors. In the second half of 2010, companies in the Microsoft BizSpark program raised more than $850M in funding.
The Microsoft BizSpark program is part of Microsoft Unlimited Potential, which is focused on solving societal challenges and creating opportunity through jobs, innovation and philanthropy. Through Unlimited Potential, Microsoft also supports the entrepreneurial student developer community with its Imagine Cup and DreamSpark programs.
Salesforce.com
Salesforce.com will provide products and technology to power the Startup America Partnership community. This entails a CRM implementation, a collaboration platform, a resource catalog built on Force.com, and a workflow engine to connect entrepreneurs with resources from private-sector partners. Professional Services will be delivered by Appirio.
Silicon Valley Bank
Silicon Valley Bank will create, coordinate, and host a top-tier event that brings entrepreneurs and experts on business growth together. The invitation-only event, which may consist of local meetings in entrepreneurial hotbeds such as Silicon Valley, Seattle, Austin, Boston, NYC, etc. will connect the most promising leaders of equally promising Startup America Partnership member companies with a mix of successful serial entrepreneurs, small business evangelists, attorneys and accountants, venture capitalists, and others whose primary focus is on helping startups.
New nonprofit commitments
The National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT)
As a member of the Startup America Partnership, the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) will work to help high-tech startups to capitalize on the increased innovation and business benefits of gender diversity, and encourage more people to become founders by promoting the achievements of technical women entrepreneurs. The NCWIT Entrepreneurial Alliance will give high-tech companies the research, practices, and community they need to recruit, retain, and promote a gender-diverse technical workforce, right from the start. The NCWIT Entrepreneurial Alliance launches with 14 member companies: AppliedTrust (Boulder, Colorado); Geomagic (Research Park Triangle, North Carolina); Get Satisfaction (San Francisco, California); Gowalla (Austin, Texas); Lijit (Boulder, Colorado); memeo (Santa Clara, California); Oblong Industries (Los Angeles, California); Return Path (New York, New York); SendGrid (Boulder, Colorado); Standing Cloud (Boulder, Colorado); Swiftpage (Englewood, Colorado); TaskRabbit (San Francisco, California); Twilio (San Francisco, California); and ViaWest (Denver, Colorado). NCWIT plans to grow the Entrepreneurial Alliance to 100 companies nationwide by the end of 2011. More than $100K will be invested in this new alliance.
Palindrome Advisors
Palindrome is launching a second program (“Palindrome Startups”) that allows industry leaders to make startup engagement and mentorship philanthropic. Palindrome Startups, launched as a commitment to Startup America, will match Palindrome’s Founding Advisors, all experienced executives and proven entrepreneurs, with young companies and first-time entrepreneurs. In order to help increase the prevalence and success of high-growth enterprises creating quality jobs in the U.S., Palindrome will tap into a deep engagement model paralleling its nonprofit model, by matching existing Advisors with startup boards and entrepreneurs. The program starts with a mentorship program and leads to a formal board seat, stressing a medium for meaningful engagement between top industry leaders and first-time entrepreneurs and startups. Palindrome strives to seek out underrepresented entrepreneurs by age, ethnicity, gender, and disability. As part of Palindrome’s core vision, the model remains philanthropic: Palindrome’s Advisors will donate time free of cost to the Palindrome Startups program, in addition to their commitments to nonprofit boards. If the advisor-startup relationship grows into a formal board seat, one hundred percent of all equity or other compensation received will be donated to Palindrome’s Nonprofit Partners.
The Angel Capital Association (ACA) and Angel Resource Institute (ARI)
The Angel Capital Association (ACA) and Angel Resource Institute (ARI) will work together on two programs: growing the pool of angel capital available for startups and connecting startup entrepreneurs with experienced investors for mentoring. ARI will conduct a series of workshops and events to educate potential and new angel investors on best practices in angel investment and then link interested investors with 160 ACA member angel organizations, so they may work with many other investors to support promising high growth ventures. It is expected that the number of investors in angel groups will double in two years as a result. The angel mentoring program matches angel investors and promising startup entrepreneurs for mentoring so that promising startups receive experienced advice on determining the right capital for startup, best positioning the company for capital, and building the company for long-term growth. As many as 2,500 of these mentored companies may attract angel or other capital during the first two years of the program.
The National Venture Capital Association (NVCA)
The National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) intends to formally create the NVCA / Startup America (SUA) Network, providing access to our 400+ venture capital firms, 4,000 + investors and thousands of venture-backed company CEOs in support of Startup America educational events around the country as well as access to StartUpHire.com, a free online jobs board for StartUp America Partnership member companies. Specifically, the NVCA / SUA Network will commit to populating SUA events around the country with speakers, lecturers and mentors from our national pool of venture capitalists and entrepreneurs; supporting regional events with the most current and relevant data and trend information regarding the state of venture funding on a local level; promoting SUA events through our high trafficked channels including the NVCA web site, blog and social media platforms; and making the StartUpHire.com online jobs platform available for start-ups seeking to hire the best and brightest employees across the country.
