Northeastern Vermont Development Association (NVDA)

This EDA investment will support the Northeast Kingdom’s InnovateNEK initiative which aims to transform Vermont’s mostly rural economy from one suffering from the loss of traditional manufacturing jobs to one driving scalable tech entrepreneurship, investment, and job creation. InnovateNEK will develop a tech ecosystem that:

1. Improves awareness, access to, and engagement with the region’s tech startup ecosystem;
2. Increases translation of emerging technology solutions into high-growth tech startups by increasing support for idea-stage tech entrepreneurs; and
3. Accelerates and invests in the region’s most promising tech startups.

The Northeastern Vermont Development Association (NVDA) will build on existing entrepreneur-focused programming to launch InnovateNEK with specialized staff, targeted outreach, and new tech-focused programming. NVDA will partner with Do North Coworking, higher education partners, and business development providers to launch InnovateNEK at Do North’s existing location in downtown Lyndon, a new innovation space in St. Johnsbury, and satellite locations throughout the region. InnovateNEK will engage 250-350 participants in events and activities supporting 45 tech entrepreneurs from ideation to launch and scale. Mentors and experienced tech entrepreneurs will work closely with startups throughout their journey, incubation and accelerator programming will provide the technical support they need, and a more robust investor network will yield investment of $3 million and 15 new revenue-generating tech companies.