St. Louis County launches $1.5M Helix Fund for life science start-ups
St. Louis Business Journal
September 21, 2010
by Kelsey Volkmann
St. Louis County has launched a $1.5 million fund called the Helix Fund, which will provide seed money for plant and life science start-ups.
The fund will provide $1.5 million in funding for emerging plant and life sciences businesses; the entrepreneurial talent and expertise needed to evaluate the commercial potential of these ventures; and a loan fund for small- to medium-sized companies expanding or relocating to the county, the St. Louis County Economic Council said Monday.
Early in 2011, the county plans to open a 33,000-square-foot, $5.1 million plant and life science incubator called the Helix Center near the Danforth Plant Science Center and Bio-Research and Development Growth Park, also called BRDG Park. The incubator, which will offer early stage ventures office and wet and dry lab space, is being designed in part to help retain displaced research scientists from local companies such as Pfizer and Monsanto.
The incubator will be located in a 47,000-square-foot office building at 1100 Corporate Square Drive in Creve Coeur that St. Louis County bought in March for $2.4 million from a real estate partnership. The money came from the county's share of a $4.4 million grant from the federal Economic Development Administration.
"Successful Missouri high-tech entrepreneurs from the last century built companies like Emerson, Monsanto and Energizer that continue to serve as pillars of our state's business community still today," said Jason Hall, executive director of the Missouri Technology Corp., in a statement. "St. Louis County's commitment to the Helix Fund demonstrates leadership and vision to grow a new generation of Missouri entrepreneurs in the fast-growing bioscience fields that are at the forefront of agriculture, clean energy and better medicine."
