RFAs: SBA Growth Accelerator Fund Competition 2025 (US)

The competition seeks to identify impactful and innovative submissions from Entrepreneur Support Organizations (ESOs) that will support entrepreneurs and small business owners in undercapitalized regions, industries, and communities.

These prizes will build ESO capacity, connectivity, and community across entrepreneurs, nonprofits, investors, universities, philanthropies, corporations, and other ecosystem stakeholders to ultimately drive the successful launch, growth, and scale of innovation-driven small businesses – encouraging new entrants into the innovation economy and driving entrepreneurial dynamism across America.

Goals

• Accelerate the growth and maturity of innovation-based entrepreneurship ecosystems across the United States.
• Strengthen American innovation ecosystems by catalyzing and/or strengthening capacity, connectivity, and community between entrepreneurs, nonprofits, investors, universities, philanthropies, corporations, and other ecosystem stakeholders.
• Incentivize innovation ecosystem stakeholders to provide open and inclusive opportunities for new entrants to participate in the innovation economy within undercapitalized regions, industries, and communities.
• Increase the pipeline and success of innovation-driven entrepreneurs and small businesses in accessing the necessary capital and other resources to advance their growth, driving entrepreneurial dynamism in their ecosystem.

Themes

• Theme Areas guide ESOs towards focusing on specific functional aspects of innovation ecosystem development. These areas are designed to encourage experimentation and innovation in addressing individual ecosystem challenges. Contestants may only select one theme to focus on. Areas for this year’s prize competition are:
  • Lab to Market: Bridging the gap between research and commercialization, in areas including but not limited to:
    • national and economic security
    • domestic manufacturing and production
    • biotechnology
    • other critical and emerging technologies in the selected innovation ecosystem.
  • Capital Formation: Expanding capital access for entrepreneurs and small businesses during the stages of business formation and business growth, through activities including but not limited to:
    • creating new funding mechanisms
    • improving investment literacy among entrepreneurs
    • developing more financial stakeholders in the selected innovation ecosystem
    • other mechanisms focused on addressing challenges to capital access in the selected innovation ecosystem.

Funding Information

• Stage One: $75,000 cash prizes will be competitively awarded to ESOs clearly describing the current state of their innovation ecosystem, the challenge they intend to address in their ecosystem that is affecting entrepreneurs and small businesses, their hypothesis of potential solutions, and their specific role in the solutions. Successful submissions will emphasize unique approaches to innovation ecosystem challenges, identify the stakeholders within the ecosystem who are affected by the challenge, demonstrate an understanding of stakeholder incentives, and explain their theory of change for addressing the identified problem.

Eligibility Criteria

• This Competition is open only to:
  • Citizens or permanent residents of the United States who are at least eighteen (18) years of age at the time of their submission of an entry (or teams of such individuals).
  • Private entities, such as corporations or other organizations, both for-profit and non- profit, that are incorporated or organized in and maintain a primary place of business in the United States, and that are not owned or controlled by a foreign government or foreign government-sponsored entity.
  • Individuals submitting on behalf of corporations, nonprofits, or other organizations or groups of individuals (such as an academic class or other team) must meet the eligibility requirements for individual Contestants.

Ineligibility Criteria

• SBA employees are not eligible, nor are Federal entities or Federal employees acting within the scope of their employment. Individuals or organizations that are currently suspended or debarred by the federal government are not eligible for this Competition.

For more information, visit SBA.