Helping to nurture small businesses and startups is a one of the Chamber’s priorities as some of these entities could one day grow to provide hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs in Oklahoma City, therefore ensuring Oklahoma City’s continued economic trajectory well into the future.

Three programs the Chamber, along with other local partners, brought to Oklahoma City in 2021 to accelerate the growth of startup companies in OKC were gBETA, Idea Accelerator and Kiva Oklahoma City.

“Support for entrepreneurship is a key component of Forward OKC VI and likewise is imperative to OKC’s continued economic success,” said Jeff Seymour, Chamber executive vice president of economic development. “These three programs serve different niches of the startup ecosystem and will help better position our participants for growth. We appreciate our partners who helped bring them to OKC.”

Read on for an update on Idea Accelerator, and stay tuned to VeloCity for more information on gBETA and Kiva Oklahoma City.

Idea Accelerator

The Idea Accelerator was created by Builders + Backers in partnership with nonprofit Heartland Forward out of northwest Arkansas to fund what are referred to as “builders,” essentially people who think they may have an idea to solve a certain problem but may not have the financial backing to test that idea. If an entrepreneur has already started a company based on that idea, he or she is ineligible for the program.

The Idea Accelerator launched last month and includes 10 builders or entrepreneurs from OKC who will learn an experimentation framework to test their ideas with the goal of eventually launching a business. Each of the builders selected for the program is supported by a $5,000 Pebble Grant from Heartland Forward to test their ideas.

Participants from Oklahoma City joined other builders from Tulsa, Iowa City, Iowa, and Oxford, Miss., on Jan. 20 for the official kickoff of the three-month-long program. The OKC cohort includes several promising ideas, such as a digital shopping bag, a subscription-based service for Black hair products, a refillable candle, spherical drones to aid public safety, and many more.

This story originally appeared in the February 2022 edition of the VeloCity newsletter.