And the winners are … Gypsy Grace and The Classic Goat, and SRINA Tea Home.
Those are the organizations obtaining funding by using Akron’s 2021 Rubber Town Match system, declared by Mayor Dan Horrigan on Thursday, June 24.
They will every receive a enterprise bank loan from the city’s partners, Western Reserve Neighborhood Fund and Columbus-centered ECDI: Financial & Group Growth Institute, alongside with a $50,000 grant from the metropolis to full their proposed initiatives.
Gypsy Grace and The Vintage Goat, which bills itself as a “metaphysical offer retail outlet” supplying items for “option healing wants, own indulgences,” and unique presents ranging from crystal balls to warm sauce, will use its winnings to increase its company at 451 W. Market St. and the products and services it offers to customers. That growth will consist of new therapeutic salt rooms and flotation tanks, the city stories.
SRINA Tea Home, a new enterprise, will use its windfall to open up on Kenmore Boulevard — an spot the metropolis has focused for organization and streetscape improvements — afterwards this summertime, the metropolis stories.
The match program is meant to assistance these kinds of compact firms set up and increase in Akron. It also works with building house owners to match their spaces with tenants.
“The objective of Rubber Town Match is to provide funding to enterprises who may possibly not have accessibility to conventional funding,” claimed Heather Roszczyk, innovation and entrepreneurship advocate for the city of Akron, in a launch. “The firms get aid and advice throughout the approach, and as a outcome, the participating making owners are remaining connected to vetted tenants who are additional most likely to thrive.”
Horrigan explained this year’s winners symbolize the sort of new ventures Akron hopes to foster additional of as the city seeks to rebuild its population and re-energize some of its organization districts.
“Retail and company corporations like these greatly lead to our community’s vibrancy by giving companies to the neighborhoods they inhabit and occupying vital storefront houses,” he reported. “Our 2020 grant recipients are wonderful illustrations of effective, in-need community firms that will use these money to create employment for our inhabitants.”
This is just not the conclusion of this year’s Rubber Town Match software, though. There’s nevertheless a second spherical, and apps for that are staying approved by means of Wednesday, June 30, the town mentioned.
In addition to funding, winners can get totally free tuition for the MORTAR software, a 15-week organization accelerator at the city’s Bounce Innovation Hub incubator, and also get support in getting and securing space in city, such as lawful assistance on lease files. There is certainly also a design award that presents winners with grants to spend for architectural drawings to develop out new spaces.
To use for Rubber Town Match, go to rubbercitymatch.com. For far more information, call 330-375-2133.