JAX Chamber and its entrepreneurial education program, JAX Bridges, announced an access to capital initiative to help entrepreneurs and small businesses more easily acquire capital funding.
The Feb. 28 announcement came 90 days before the first opportunity for businesses to apply for loans is made available at the May 7 JAX Bridges meeting.
Carlton Robinson, the chamber’s chief Innovation Officer, told a group of business leaders, financial professionals, chamber members and employees that the chamber has partnered with an unnamed bank to provide initial $10,000 loans. An advisory board of bankers and small business operators will review requests for sums up to $100,000.
The bank, which is not local, could not be named as it is going through rebranding, Robinson said.
Mark Bennett, immediate past chamber chair and Jacksonville president and Southeastern Region executive for Bank of America, said recent surveys of area small business operators show that 90% expected to acquire needed capital for growth in 2025.
“The one thing we were missing was easier access to capital and a vetting system to help lenders get their dollars out on the street to help grow promising local companies,” Bennett said in news release after the announcement.
Mayor Donna Deegan told the gathering the program will be important to growing Jacksonville’s reputation as a city where businesses can prosper.
“Jacksonville is a business-friendly city with every advantage to succeed. It is a world class logistics hub and a prime location. It has a strong, experienced and diverse workforce, a low cost of living and a high quality of life,” she said.
Deegan said her administration has helped businesses by reducing permitting time from 100 days to about 40.
The financing program is in its infancy. Committees need to be developed and a loan structure created over the next 90 days. The plan will expand on the work JAX Bridges already does to prepare new small business owners to prepare to apply for a business loan.
JAX Bridges, formed 11 years ago, has helped more than 3,000 area small business owners.
“Short term, we have two value propositions for this initiative,” Robinson said.
“One, we want to modernize access to capital for small businesses. Two, we want to enhance relationship access to lenders.”
The chamber will not be underwriting any loans, Robinson said. However, it wants to build a fund that will allow it to underwrite benefits to chamber members like a lower interest rate.
Business owners applying for capital through the program do not have to be chamber members.
The program is based on a similar one operating in Indianapolis, the site of a recent chamber trip.