Delaware Organizations Foster Entrepreneurship Across Communities, Industries

Organizations that foster entrepreneurship in Delaware include the University of Delaware (UD) Office of Economic Innovation and Partnerships; the Delaware Small Business Development Center; the Horn Entrepreneurship Program at UD, led by Dan Freeman; and Delaware State University’s The Garage incubator. | PHOTO CREDITS (CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT): COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE; COURTESY OF THE DELAWARE SBDC; COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE; MOONLOOP PHOTOGRAPHY / JUSTIN HEYE

Starting a business or keeping a small enterprise sustainable can be daunting. But in Delaware, a wide network of expert-run organizations helps innovative ideas go from dream to reality and stay there.

Major players in this network include the state’s largest universities — the University of Delaware and Delaware State University — but the major convener at the center is arguably the Delaware Prosperity Partnership (DPP). This public-private partnership that oversees economic development for the State of Delaware holds monthly meetings with key stakeholders to make sure everyone involved in the entrepreneurial ecosystem is communicating and collaborating well.

“We think of ourselves as switchboard operators who make sure folks are connected to resources,” says Noah Olson, DPP’s director of innovation.

In addition to serving as a connector, DPP has some of its own programming to support entrepreneurs. One prime example is Startup302, an annual pitch contest for ventures with underrepresented founders. The competition is now in its fourth year.

“It’s open to both in-state and out-of-state companies, with the dual purpose of supporting startups locally as well as helping companies build local relationships. The goal is to eventually have them set up shop or do business in Delaware,” says Olson.

The pitch contest’s industry categories reflect the most relevant, fastest-growing sectors, such as fintech (financial technology), life sciences and environmental impact. The latter category includes both companies focused on green solutions such as renewable energy, as well as those that are part of the ocean-focused blue economy.

Another major support that DPP offers entrepreneurs is its lab grant program, which provides funds to cover up to 33%of a company’s costs in setting up lab space. One company that’s taken advantage is RiKarbon, which rethinks carbon as a material for renewable products. “They went through the lab grant program in October and are now graduating out of the DTP@STAR” incubator, Olson says.

DTP@STAR is one of two locations of theDelaware Technology Park, one of the longest-running institutions supporting innovative startups in the state. Others include The Innovation Space, the Delaware BioScience Association, and the New Castle County Chamber of Commerce’s Emerging Enterprise Center, Olson notes.

Delaware State University
As Delaware’s Historically Black College or University (HBCU), Delaware State University (DSU) “is a key player” in supporting entrepreneurship, says Michael H. Casson Jr., PhD, interim dean of DSU’s College of Business. “We like to think of our programs as part of an entrepreneurial ecosystem that extends outside of our borders” to Delaware’s communities.

The centerpiece of DSU’s entrepreneurial ecosystem is the Delaware Center for Enterprise Development (DCED). Its mission is to educate current and prospective entrepreneurs through training programs, technical assistance and access to capital.

DCED is the umbrella organization that manages programs such as DSU’s Food Business Incubation Center and The Garage, a space where DSU students, faculty and community members are all welcome to explore and develop their product or business ideas.

The Garage is both “a maker space and an ideation space,” Casson says.

Another upcoming DSU project is the Center for Urban Revitalization and Entrepreneurship, which will be located in downtown Dover. “It will look at business incubation through a different lens,” Casson says. “Traditional incubators focus on entrepreneurs with some business training. But with our model, we’re going to educate community members and ensure fertile ground for entrepreneurship is being created in local areas.”

At the time of writing, a soft launch for the center was planned in the spring.

DSU also participates in the National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program— an immersive, seven-week entrepreneurial training program that helps faculty members and graduate students extend their focus beyond university laboratories and towards using their inventions to benefit society and the economy.

Delaware Small Business Development Center
For 41 years, the Delaware Small Business Development Center (SBDC) has provided support services to entrepreneurs free of charge, thanks to funding by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) and state government. The SBDC has offices in each of Delaware’s three counties.

“There’s not a business we don’t touch, whether it’s retail, manufacturing or tech,” says Mike Bowman, Delaware SBDC state director. “We’re very conscious that about 99% of the businesses in Delaware are small businesses.”

In particular, the SBDC is focused on supporting under-served entrepreneurs.  “We help them with business planning, financial modeling, perhaps a marketing plan,” Bowman says. “We actually have developed a nationally acclaimed cybersecurity training program — it’s the one that has now been adopted by the SBA. They require every state SBDC to have at least one person certified through this program.”

Another program special to the Delaware SBDC is the Community Navigator Pilot Program. This SBA-funded grant program is specifically targeted toward underserved founders and was awarded to just four SBDCs around the country.

The Delaware SBDC works as the hub for the program, with spokes including organizations such as the Delaware Black Chamber of Commerce and the United Way.

“They go into the areas they know, and it might be neighborhoods that very few people go into,” Bowman says. “They know the people, they know the churches and social centers.” The message is: don’t move out — invest and build here.

Rather than adhering to traditional organizational hierarchy, the SBDC team is expertise-based. “Some are former bankers, so they know how to prepare well for loan applications,” Bowman says. “My cyber guy came from Wall Street.”

Other staff members help entrepreneurs apply for grant programs, such as the State of Delaware’s EDGE (Encouraging Development, Growth & Expansion) Grants. “Of the 10 most recent EDGE Grant winners, nine were our clients,” Bowman says. “We helped them think through how to apply, how to compete and how to pitch. It’s also really good experience for possible future venture money applications.”

The Delaware SBDC’s success is easily illustrated with a few simple statistics, Bowman says: “We serve about 800 clients a year and we do up to 8,000 hours [of client support]. We’ve helped create or retain thousands of jobs every year of our existence.”

Another major program coming up for the SBDC is the State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI). “The state has been awarded about $60 million by the Treasury, and we were named by the Governor as the technical assistance provider for the program. We will be helping clients understand where to go” to get associated funding, Bowman says.

University of Delaware: Horn Entrepreneurship
The University of Delaware (UD) is not only the state’s major research university, but also an entrepreneurship  juggernaut. Two major organizations supporting entrepreneurship at UD are the Office of Economic Innovation and Partnerships (OEID) and the Horn Entrepreneurship Program.

Horn alone provides more than 2,600 hours of mentorship annually and has secured $104 million in funding for student and alumni ventures. It has also launched Delaware success stories like Versogen, Carvertise, TRIC Robotics, Wilminvest, Patient Sortal, Carbon Reform, A.I.Whoo and Alchemize Fightwear.

“We play a multi-faceted role through a variety of different buckets of programming,” says Director Dan Freeman. One important bucket is the Diamond Challenge, which allows high school entrepreneurs to compete for $100,000 in awards. Participants have come from 40 states and 111 countries.The final round takes place in Delaware each April.

Then there is a dual enrollment program at about 20 schools in Delaware, called the Entrepreneurship Experience Lab, or EntreX for short. “It really helps to give students agency and the mindset to create new ideas,” Freeman says. At the university level, program-ming is even more extensive, with the centerpiece being the Hen Hatch startup pitch competition. Students compete for startup cash and prizes totaling $50,000.

Then there are other programs that are open to the community. “There’s the Delaware Innovation Fellows program, which is loosely modeled on Leadership Delaware,” a nonprofit whose mission is to build the next generation of leaders in the state, says Freeman. “It provides specific training on how to think about translating technology from labs into the marketplace through commercialization. It rotates around different locations in Delaware that are epicenters for innovation,” such as The Innovation Space and the offices of the Division of Small Business.

The Innovation Fellows program, Freeman adds, “is meant to introduce inventors and innovators to the leaders in Delaware’s innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem. It’s a fee-based program, but we’re committed to making sure the fee doesn’t stand in the way of anyone participating.”

Another key program is the National Science Foundation’s I-Corps program, which DSU is also part of.

“The original focus was mostly on university-originated intellectual property, but we’ve been given new, broader mandates to really focus on regional economic development,” says Freeman. “That will be open to anyone who’s working on a technology-based venture.”

University of Delaware: Office of Economic Innovation and Partnerships
As for OEIP, “we are the conduit to get technology out of the university,” says Julius Korley, associate vice president. “We serve all the faculty members of UD.”

Korley is also co-director of the Northeast Region for theI-Corps program. “Through that program,” he says, “we’re training teams that don’t have any intellectual property at the University of Delaware.”

OEIP also acts “as a connector for partnerships with outside entities — anything that’s going to help get more technologies out there to help the human condition.”

Korley notes that two pieces of intellectual property that have been shepherded to market by OEIP are currently in use at Fortune 100 companies.

At the time of writing, Korley was also on the verge of helping to launch The IDeA Regional Entrepreneurship Development (I-RED) program, which specifically aims to build entrepreneurial skills among biomedical researchers and students. (One of Korley’s many hats is as a UD faculty member in biomedical engineering.)

Korley and OEIP are also involved in launching the Accelerating Research Translation (ART) program funded by the National Science Foundation, which celebrated its symbolic kickoff on LeapDay. ART supports institutions of higher education that seek to build capacity and infrastructure to translate academic research into tangible solutions that benefit the public.

As a result of ART, OEIP is going to restructure significantly, Korley says. “We’re building capacity to better serve our faculty members with a host of new roles, including a person focusing on corporate engagement.”

However, arguably OEIP’s biggest recent achievement —in collaboration with Dan Freeman and Horn Entrepreneurship— was to gain approval from the UD Faculty Senate for a change that will allow UD faculty to earn tenure credits for entrepreneurial activities and community engagement. UD’s departments are currently hard at work writing guidelines for this change, with support from OEIP experts.

“It’s something we’re really excited about,” Korley says.“We think it’ll open the floodgates for more innovation and entrepreneurship activity.”