The Research Park Corporation board of directors this afternoon approved a donation of $125,000 to the Louisiana Small Business Rebirth Fund, which was established by the Baton Rouge Area Chamber and the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry in the wake of the August flood to award microgrants to small businesses affected by the disaster.
The donation will help kick off a second round of grant awards. LABI and BRAC announced earlier this week that more than $350,000 had been awarded to 57 needy businesses in the region.
The donation was one of several potentially far-reaching actions by the board of the RPC, an umbrella organization that oversees three entities: the Louisiana Technology Park, a business incubator in the Bon Carré Technology Center; Innovation Catalyst, a nonprofit venture capital fund; and Nexus Louisiana, a newly christened Regional Innovation Organization.
At the meeting today, the board voted officially to create Nexus Louisiana as a limited liability corporation. That may sound like a technical thing, and in some respects it is. But RPC President and CEO Byron Clayton says the move is significant because Nexus Louisiana is a badly needed organization that will focus on greater regional collaboration in the entrepreneurial arena, access to capital and diversity.
“The Tech Park is an innovative hub,” he says. “But we need an organization that is focused on the entire region … and one of the main reasons for regional collaboration is to be more effective in getting money from national grants and foundations.”
The RPC tried several years ago to create an RIO, but it never got off the ground for a variety of reasons.
The RPC board today also approved a new strategic plan for 2017, part of which includes more outreach and regional communication. To that end, Innovation Catalyst CEO Louis Freeman will be working with the founder of the NO/LA Angel Network in New Orleans, former Weather Channel founder and CEO Mike Eckert, to tour the state and drum up support among potential investors and entrepreneurs for both the New Orleans-based network and the Baton Rouge fund.
“Ultimately, we’re trying to get people who have the money to invest in early stage companies,” Clayton says. “We don’t care if they do it through a network or through a VC fund. As long as they do it.”
In other business today, the RPC board accepted the resignation of one of its longtime members, Eddie Ashworth, who also served as CEO of the RPC from 2000-2008.
—Stephanie Riegel
