Massachusetts has a long history of churning out startups from its colleges, amassing venture capital for its companies and winning patents for its inventors.
However, the Massachusetts Competitive Partnership wants to see the state do more to attract and retain entrepreneurs in an increasingly mobile world where people can live and work anywhere.
MACP is a nonprofit public policy group that aims to promote job growth and competitiveness in Massachusetts. Its members are chief executives of some of the state’s largest businesses, including Abigail Johnson of Fidelity Investments, Niraj Shah of Wayfair and Corey Thomas of Rapid7.
A new report published this week from MACP called on state leadership, including the Healey-Driscoll administration and the Massachusetts legislature, to take steps like designing incentive packages, establishing an Entrepreneurship & Innovation Council and creating marketing campaigns to promote the state as a “thinking and doing” place.
“Massachusetts faces the challenge of other states attracting entrepreneurs, especially particularly lower-cost ones, who are starting to catch up in terms of fostering innovation and supporting startups,” the report reads. “Many states have recognized the immense economic benefits of nurturing entrepreneurial endeavors and have begun providing massive incentives to attract companies and startups. To stay ahead, Massachusetts must proactively attract new companies, technologies, and innovations through policies and programs that facilitate business growth.”
MACP’s recommendations fall into five categories: Funding, commercialization and procurement, ecosystem development, talent and branding and marketing.
Massachusetts consistently ranks third amongst states for the amount of venture capital going to its startups, behind California and New York. But as the economy fluctuates, so does the amount of capital investors are willing to disperse. In the first half of 2022, Massachusetts companies brought in $12.6 billion in venture funding. That number dropped to $8.3 billion in the first six months of this year, per Pitchbook/NVCA data.
Among the nonprofit’s recommendations for giving startups greater access to capital is to create a pool of matching funds for companies pursuing federal grant dollars and to offer refundable tax credits to entrepreneurs.
MACP also wants to see the state update its commercialization and procurement policies. The group called for reforms to procurement laws to allow for piloting and evaluating new technologies and practices, as well as changes to permitting and siting processes to enable technology deployment. More broadly, MACP wants to see the state continue supporting tech transfers out of local universities.
The Healey-Driscoll administration is already thinking of ways to tackle MACP’s call for a focus on building industry clusters across the state. Secretary of Economic Development Yvonne Hao has told BostInno her office is looking at how Western and Central Massachusetts could benefit from funding from the CHIPS and Science Act.
To support ecosystem development, MACP also recommended creating a guide for municipalities on how to attract and support entrepreneurs and investing in buildings around Massachusetts to house startups.
Massachusetts has also already taken some steps to boost recruitment and training efforts in the state, including with the recently launched Pathmaker program to create free, eight-to-10-week training programs in life sciences jobs for those without college degrees. MACP said more could be done to expand workforce training at community colleges and bring in international entrepreneurs.
MACP also wants to see Massachusetts put itself in the limelight by convening members of the regional, national, and international entrepreneurship community and host entrepreneurship competitions.
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