In late 2020 Ion Concert Media was awarded a technology grant from the state of Minnesota. The award came as part of a year-old initiative called Launch Minnesota, which provides funding and support for promising startups in the state. The company spent several weeks in the fall preparing its grant proposal. Notice of the award arrived in late November. The company will use the grant funding to develop new products for the Ion Content Library.
According to company CEO Scott Winters, the timing of this new funding is ideal. “When we started the application process last fall things were still pretty quiet around here,” he shared. “COVID had forced the cancellation of almost all our shows and nobody was shopping for concert multimedia. But in January we began to see signs of life. Now we have called the team back to work and we expect to be busier than ever this spring preparing for a return of business in September.”
Company CCO Timothy Shade says getting ready for the fall means producing lots of new content. “Scott has done a great job opening up some exciting new selling opportunities for us,” he shared. “We want to double the size of the Ion Content Library by the fall to take full advantage of those opportunities and keep up with demand.”
The grant program, which provides a 1-1 cash match for qualified spending, is providing $25k in funding to do that work. The company has secured an outside investment to meet the required cash match; a total of $50k in new funding.
“The timing really is perfect,” says Winters. “Without this grant funding we could not have afforded the product development work we need to accomplish this spring.”
ABOUT LAUNCH MINNESOTA
Launch Minnesota is a new initiative spearheaded by Minnesota’s Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED). Designed in consultation with legislators from both parties, and alongside dozens of private sector leaders, the program exists to help grow Minnesota’s startup ecosystem. In its first year the program awarded over $2M in funding to startups across the state.
