Bar Harbor startup incubator nets $1.5M grant
A foundation honoring a late Mount Desert Island summer resident has given $1.5 million to a Bar Harbor startup incubator that provides opportunities for College of the Atlantic students.
College of the Atlantic said Monday that the $1.5 million endowment grant from the Diana Davis Spencer Foundation will provide the college’s Sustainable Enterprise Hatchery with support staff, seed funding for startups and operating expenses in perpetuity.
The Hatchery, as it’s known by as the college, gives College of the Atlantic students a chance to start a business and earn college credit in an interdisciplinary environment, with past efforts having focused on alternative energy, advocacy, food systems and the creative economy. Each student admitted into the program receives $5,000 in seed capital and has access to mentors, lawyers, accountants, design and public relations professionals.
“We’re thrilled to support the Hatchery, which imbues students with an entrepreneurial mindset and the tools to make the world a better place,” Diana Spencer said in a prepared statement. The Bethesda, Md.-based foundation pays tribute to Spencer’s late mother, Kathryn Wasserman Davis, an author, philanthropist and “global ambassador for peace."
Jay Friedlander, the former COO of Stonyfield Cafe, leads the Hatchery. Friedlander, who is speaking at Maine Startup & Create Week in Portland on Friday, is the college’s Sharpe-McNally chair of Green and Socially Responsible Business.
"The investment in the Hatchery by the Diana Davis Spencer Foundation is an honor and will give us the resources to support student ventures from across the campus for generations to come,” he said in a prepared statement.
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