This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Jan. 14, 2013 - As it prepares to select its second crop of startups and hand out a million dollars in gifts, Arch Grants has pushed back its application deadline to Feb. 1.
“We just felt that, with the nature of the deadline falling around the holidays, we had people coming to us saying they’d been busy and unable to apply,” said Sarah Spear, executive director of the group. “By extending the deadline, we’ve afforded the opportunity for everyone who wants to apply.”
While the group isn’t releasing numbers, Spear said the competition has already logged more entrants than last year’s total of 420. This year will also see more winners, with 20 enterprises taking away $50,000 grants instead of just 15.
“We have the funding available,” she said. “Having one round under our belts and knowing what to anticipate and having been able to establish some procedures in our first round, we now have the capacity to bring on additional grantees.”
Designed to boost local entrepreneurial ventures, the grants also come attached to professional services from accountants, attorneys, marketers and cloud computing concerns.
“We’ve gotten good feedback from current participants about what’s been valuable to them in having the pro-bono services,” said Spear.
She said the applications should result in a diverse group of startups that will eventually be narrowed to approximately 100 businesses from which Arch Grants will request executive summaries. Roughly 50 finalists will eventually be invited to personally give their pitches to judges in late April.
“We remained industry-agnostic in this round just as we did in the first round so that we’re inviting people in from all different industries,” she said. “There has been and will continue to be a more concerted effort to bring in people from various fields because we saw, at least in the last round, a lot of applicants in the biosciences, a lot of applicants in the tech space. We have great strong verticals in those areas in St. Louis and we also feel like there are other areas that are burgeoning and growing from finance to fashion.”
Last year more than 70 percent of applicants were in the tech space. Nearly four-fifths were local.
“We definitely invite applicants from outside the region, as we do applicants from within St. Louis,” she said. “We position ourselves as a global startup competition so not only are applications coming from around the country. They are coming from around the world.”
Applicants will be judged on three criteria, including the innovative nature of the product or service, scalability of the concept and commitment to St. Louis. Winners will be expected to be based here during the year-long program, which could include everything from roundtables to mixers with investors.
“There are a lot of things that don’t follow a strict programmed schedule but are built into the course of the year,” she said.
Two of the winning startups could also receive follow-on grants of $100,000 each.
Spear said that the competition will bring in individuals who are well-acquainted with an applicant’s field once it gets down to the middle stages.
“Those will be reviewed at an industry-specific level by judges,” she said. “That means judges with expertise in the semifinalist’s industry will be reviewing their executive summary.”
That will also mean a greater focus on the details.
“We’ll be delving more deeply into their business model, whether it makes sense for that industry, whether the startup they are pursuing is something that industry experts view as advantageous,” she said.
Last year’s winners included a tool for food label analysis, a social games maker for mobile phones and a Hulu-like service to stream foreign television.
“It’s all part of the effort to get more entrepreneurs who may be out of the mainstream of the startup community and invite them into that community in St. Louis,” Spear said.