Humboldt Partners Join Forces to Grow Next Big Business

Handshake [Image by Tobias Wolter, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

A partnership including Cal Poly Humboldt, College of the Redwoods and the region’s Small Business Development Center (SBDC) aims to award a total of $200,000 to entrepreneurs on quests to start new businesses.

Described on its website as an “innovation hub,” the StartUp Humboldt partnership already offers low-cost meeting and office spaces at its headquarters at 876 7^th St. in Arcata and its next step is to help entrepreneurs “turn ideas into thriving ventures.”

Detailed during the Aug. 13 online meeting of the Community Economic Resilience Consortium, the funding is competitive and will be awarded through a process that includes an “ideation workshop” and an “entrepreneur talk” session.

Wil Franklin of North Coast SBDC said the partnership is “launching the competition full force and we are in serious fundraising mode.”

The idea is to provide the seed money and support that will grow the region’s future cornerstone businesses.

“We really want to find the next Natural Decadence or Yakima or Wing Inflatables,” Franklin said. “We want to find and scale businesses rooted in Humboldt and in neighboring areas and we want them to stay here and we want to help them scale – so this competition is the centerpiece of that and it’s much more than a competition.”

“We’re dedicated to inspiring bold ventures, motivating fist steps and enabling big leaps,” said Samantha Edwards of SBDC. “We’d like to transform Humboldt into a launchpad for powerful ideas by way of connecting entrepreneurs to the education, capital and community they need to build thriving businesses.”

She described “limited access to capital” locally as one of the “major drivers” of the area’s loss of talent.

“Having the first polytechnic university in Northern California, we are getting an influx of the next generation of innovators,” said Edwards. “They are getting their degrees here and then sadly, many of them are leaving the region in search of better-funded opportunities elsewhere. And when they leave, they’re taking their ideas, their energy and their economic potential with them.”

Edwards said that “with the right strategic interventions,” the “pattern of disinvestment” can be reversed.

“We’re raising the bar from previous competitions, I know that there have been some in the past but with this one, there will be bigger awards, bigger support systems and a focus on truly scalable businesses.”
The funding awards will be “unlocked in stages” during a 120-day “incubation period” as the new business plans progress. Edwards said. “The winners can’t take their giant checks and go to Tahiti – they must follow through with milestones that have been predetermined by the advisors and the education team.”
The involvement of another major StartUp partner – Lost Coast Ventures – opens “further opportunities for long-term support,” Edwards continued.

While StartUp envisions seeding multi-million dollar businesses, there will be one “micro-venture” funding award.

The funding program launches on Sept. 16 with a “learn how to enter” kick-off party. Monthly Workshops, talks, feedback sessions and a final awards ceremony in April 2026 will follow, all at StartUp’s Arcata headquarters.

During a comment and response session, Calder Johnson of the California Center for Rural Policy’s Redwood Region Rise program noted a “potentially controversial pick” among StartUp’s suggested business focus areas – AI technology.

“A huge concern of mine is that the current development of AI, particularly in the state, is vastly disfavoring rural areas,” he said, with some “major issues around corporate control” and “the environmental impacts that we are seeing in AI development, which I think do particularly affect rural areas.”

Edwards described the commentary as “great feedback” and said while AI doesn’t necessarily have to be included, StartUp wants to “keep the door wide open to whatever industry someone has an idea about.”
More information on the competition is available online at startuphumboldt.org/thecompetition/