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Each organization won $50,000 in prize money from the U.S. Small Business Administration Growth Accelerator Fund Competition, taking two of three prizes awarded in ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥.

UACI, the UA’s longtime tech-oriented business incubator, proposed innovative ideas to support women-led startups researching and developing STEM-related innovations.

The center plans to use the prize money to hire female student interns and match them with women-led startups to give them strategic commercialization insight and to support them in advancing technology through federally funded projects such as federal Small Business Innovation Research awards.

Startup ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ plans to use its prize funds to expand its existing food and agricultural programs to entrepreneurs who are rural and/or Spanish-speaking in communities surrounding ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥.

The money will also help translate Startup ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ programs into Spanish, a need identified throughout the rollout of the food programs developed under a 2020 USDA Farmers Market Promotion grant, the nonprofit group said.

The funding also will boost financial resources to agricultural entrepreneurs through training on how to win federal small-business research grants and will allow Startup ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ to add an “AgTech Prizeâ€� to its annual business pitch competition, IdeaFunding, next April.

Dre Thompson, executive vice president of Startup ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥, said the prize money will help the group meet critical needs identified working with food entrepreneurs in its Food Forward program, which is supported by a $250,000 grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture last year.

“This project will be just one building block of moving toward a unified and supportive food ecosystem,� Thompson said.

Eric Smith, executive director of UACI, said the fact that ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ won two of three of the state’s SBA Growth Accelerator Fund Competition prizes shows the region “has what it takes to creatively support innovators.â€�

“This funding will allow us to increase support for women-led startups in the region while providing opportunities for female students at the University of ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ to understand what it is like to take innovations to the market,â€� Smith said.

The other Growth Accelerator Fund Competition prize awarded in ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ went to Seed Spot, a Phoenix-based business incubator focused on helping social entrepreneurs.