The White House's New Campaign to Encourage Startups

Last week Sharon Vosmek, the CEO of Astia, a not-for-profit group created to help companies run by women that need outside capital, stopped by our offices to appear on Bloomberg TV’s Street Smart show and catch us up on Astia’s progress.

Our conversation was wide-ranging. Vosmek explained where Astia’s early-stage companies are likely to find venture capital financing these days (corporate venture arms of behemoths such as AOL, Intel, and, believe it or not, Bosch). She also dug into ways to increase America’s economic competitiveness (advise and fund overlooked innovators around the country).

Today Astia and over a dozen formidable foundations, tech companies, and educators (including the Kauffman Foundation, Google, and the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship) announced an initiative to do just that.

Coordinated by the White House, the Startup America Partnership gets players in the startup ecosystem to make investments in and provide expertise to high-potential ventures. Among this year’s commitments: IBM is pledging $150 million; HP more than $4 million; and Facebook is launching Startup Days, a new series of training events to be held around the country.

This Bloomberg News story takes a look at Steve Case’s role as head of the campaign. More on individual participants’ commitments on the Startup website.

Read more at BusinessWeek Successful Entrepreneur Blog