On Thursday, Gov. Kevin Stitt visited the new home of Startup 405, an entrepreneurial incubator started by the Norman Economic Development Coalition.

“Half of our employees in Oklahoma work for small businesses. That’s what drives our economy,” the governor said. “We always look at the huge companies, and we’re so proud of the Continentals and the Devons. But those all started as small businesses just with an entrepreneurial idea, and that’s what makes Oklahoma so amazing.”

Startup 405’s new home at 425 W. Main St. will provide 18,000 square feet of workspace for Cleveland County-based entrepreneurs. NEDC additionally announced a partnership with Boyd Street Ventures to provide seed funding and venture capital, along with access to accounting, legal advice, and guidance on sales, marketing, branding and human resources.

“This building was purchased with ARPA dollars, and incubators are a de facto accepted use of those, but in particular, we need to focus on women, veterans, minorities and Native Americans,” said NEDC president and CEO Lawrence McKinney. “That doesn’t mean we can’t accept other companies, because we certainly will. But we will certainly have that focus.”

McKinney said the coalition has benefited from sharing office space with VisitNorman and the Norman Chamber of Commerce across the street; he hopes that Startup 405 entrepreneurs will have similar collaborative experiences.

“It’s really just meeting each other at the water cooler, and that’s what’s gonna happen in this building, when you think of the 20 offices we’ll have,” McKinney said.

According to Michael Schade, the interim Chief Innovation and Corporate Officer at the University of Oklahoma, entrepreneurs have two big roadblocks: scaling and funding. Startup 405 aims to help entrepreneurs with the former through guidance and mentorship.

To help with funding, McKinney announced the Cleveland County Centurions Growth Fund — the C3 Growth Fund for short. The fund will support 20 to 30 Cleveland County-based entrepreneurs through a $1 million private sector contribution, matched with an additional $1 million from the state.

Boyd Street Ventures will manage the C3 Growth Fund. James Spann, founder and general partner of Boyd Street Ventures, said his firm has already managed a similar fund, which invested in ten Oklahoma-based businesses.

“We didn’t merely do this out of the kindness of our hearts, you know. We’re doing it to help build economic impact in Oklahoma, but also generate healthy returns for our [limited partners],” Spann said. “We’re similarly confident that the C3 Growth Fund that Lawrence is talking about will help with that growth of our companies and growth of that economic impact.”

Looking forward to 2025, NEDC announced the first “Beyond the Norm Innovation Week,” featuring entrepreneurial programming every April during the week of OU’s Spring Game.

One of the week’s events will be the “Shark Byte Entrepreneurial Expo,” where entrepreneurs across high school, technical school and college categories can compete to win cash prizes through their endeavors.