The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, a quasi-public agency that oversees state dollars allocated toward increasing the life sciences industry’s footprint in the Bay State, announced another season for “accelerator” loan program.
The loans are designed to provide a boost to early-stage life science companies that the center’s scientific advisory board deem to have a high potential for commercialization, rapid growth and the ability to raise substantial capital.
Firms that have raised more than $5 million in private financing, won accelerator loans in the past, or are part of a larger parent company are not eligible to receive the loans. In addition, any company that has applied to the center’s Small Business Matching Grant program will not be allowed to apply to the accelerator program.
In two previous rounds of the program loans went to 10 companies. In September, Good Start Genetics became the first company to repay their accelerator loan after raising $18 million in a Series A financing round.
In the spring of 2009, the center handed out about $3.4 million worth of loans to seven Massachusetts companies.
The program was put on hold in the fall of 2009, when the Commonwealth’s budget crisis put the center’s discretionary funding pool in jeopardy. The agency manages four pools of grants, loans and tax breaks designed to attract companies and grow start-ups in Massachusetts.
The current round of loans will have a $750,000 cap, up from 2009’s cap of $500,000. The center is allocating $5.5 million to the program, with about $3.8 million of that going to the next round of loans.
Companies can apply for the loans online until noon Nov. 29.
