Have you been following the 2008 21st Century Jobs Fund award announcements? You will recall that originally last October, 2008 the SEIC Board approved awards to 17 companies. That was how many of the 51 applicants they could accomodate with the $30million available for the competition last year. As the MEDC completed due diligence and confirmed matches, two companies had to drop out. They couldn’t close on their match and therefore had to forfeit their award. Another rejected the loan offer because they didn’t like the terms. That left enough money for the Board to approve the next two companies in line for the award, Fisher Coachworks and Incept BioSystems.
When we last reported on this there was still about $2.8 million available to award but dropping down the list of next eligible winners by score found four were tied and they had a combined ask of more than $7 million. What to do? Since so many months had passed since the applications were made and the awards were announced it was decided the MEDC staff needed to get an update on the four companies.
Since then another company, Meditrina, has not been able to close on their match and had to forfeit their award. That increased the amount of available funds to nearly $6 million. One of the four new companies eligible for funding has since gone away. So the SEIC Board at their meeting last week approved $1,828,980 to each of the remaining three companies. This awards the entire $30 million originally available to 18 companies. The companies receiving the newly approved loans are:
Venomix in Kalamazoo
Danotek Motion Technologies in Plymouth
NephRx in Kalamazoo
Where does that leave the 21CJF competition program? In limbo at the moment. There will not likely be a 2009 competition. There is no money available. They, the MEDC and SEIC, are trying to find more money for the program but the possibility is slim. We’ll keep you posted.
