$101 million allocated to SC capital fund.

South Carolina venture capital and small business loan programs will soon be able to take advantage of more than $101 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding earmarked for the state, according to Sen. Tim Scott's Deputy Legislative Assistant Luis Reyes.

The capital is a portion of the $10 billion in State Small Business Credit Initiative funding provided to states, the District of Columbia, U.S. territories and tribal governments when ARPA was signed into law on March 11, 2021.

The SSBCI program first commenced in 2010 and ran until 2017, during which the Council of Development Finance Agencies called it "one of the most successful federal programs to expand access-to-capital delivery mechanisms at the time." It deployed $1.4 billion in funding to more than 16,900 small businesses. After a four- year hiatus, ARPA brought the program back to life.

According to Reyes, the revitalized version of the program, like its predecessor, will target venture capital, capital access, loan participation and loan guarantee programs, as well as collateral support initiatives run by governments, financial institutions and community or economic development organizations.

Loan participation programs allow public entities to buy an interest in a loan or to lend to small businesses alongside private entities. Loan guaran- tee programs enable public entities to use SSBCI funding to back-up lenders with at least half of a what's owed them in case a borrower defaults, according the to the U.S. Treasury Department. Capital access programs differ from the other capital offerings by supplementing a loan loss reserve fund for both the lender and borrower with SSBCI funds.

States submitted application forms for candidate programs to the U.S. Treasury Department on Feb. 11, and the U.S. Treasury extended the application deadline to May 11 for tribal governments such as Rock Hill's Catawba Nation.

All jurisdictions, barring tribal governments, must submit applications for technical assistance to the Treasury Department on June 30, but...