Minnesota's startup ecosystem.

Byline: Brian Martucci

Tucked away in this year's motley special session package at the Legislature was a bill authorizing the creation of Launch Minnesota, a $5 million public-private program to grow the state's innovation economy.

Amid partisan sniping over proposed increases to public education funding and the state gas tax, Launch Minnesota's relatively modest investment drew low-key support from both sides of the aisle, emerging from the legislative gantlet with the broad strokes of Gov. Tim Walz's original proposal intact albeit with a slimmer budget. The passage of Launch Minnesota was hailed as an early win for the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) under commissioner Steve Grove, a 12-year Google veteran and co-founder of Minneapolis-based youth-in-tech nonprofit Silicon NorthStars.

According to a DEED release announcing the program, Launch Minnesota's directive is "[creating] financial incentives and programming to demonstrate that Minnesota is committed to fostering an innovation ecosystem that draws global attention." That's a big goal for a $2.5-million-per-year program one it surely can't manage on its own.

The good news for Minnesota-based innovators: Launch Minnesota won't operate in a vacuum. Across the state, inventors and founders have more resources at their disposal than ever before, even as their absolute numbers and growth rate remain low according to Greater MSP's Regional Indicators Dashboard, the Minnesota ranks last in the formation of new business establishments, a key metric of vitality.

Several niche-specific accelerators now operate in the Twin Cities, backed by local Fortune 500s looking to surface (and capture) in- and out-of-town talent. The University of Minnesota, long an engine of innovation, is redoubling its efforts to commercialize promising technologies developed by researchers more at home in the lab than the boardroom, aided by a lively business advisory board. A host of startup-focused organizations, like Beta, shepherd founders through the first stages of the corporate lifecycle. Even Minnesota's early-stage funding ecosystem, long a weak link in the state's innovation chain, is newly invigorated, with multiple out-of-town venture capital groups opening Twin Cities shops in the past two years.

Help is out there, innovators. The trick is figuring out where to start, and how.

Beyond research

For inventors associated with the U of M, the natural place to start is...