In an effort to drive new business to the St. Joseph area the St. Joseph Chamber of Commerce has announced the addition of co-working space and entrepreneur funding.

According to a news release, the St. Joseph Innovation Stockyard along with other local partners, the St. Joseph Chamber of Commerce, Buchanan County and Missouri Western’s Center for Entrepreneurship will team up with Digital Sandbox KC and the Missouri Technology Corporation (MTC) to drive new business growth. According to Digital Sandbox’s website, the company’s mission is to provide proof-of-concept resources to support the early-stage commercialization profess including access to technology, business and market experts and funding for early stage market validation, prototyping and beta testing services.

The chamber said Innovation Stockyard, located in the Christopher S. “Kit” Bond Incubator on Missouri Western, will offer proof-of-concept grant recipients co-working space in its new co-working center, set to open in July, as well as cash grants to help start-up new local businesses in the St. Joseph area.

“By using our new co-working space at the Christopher S. “Kit” Bond Incubator to support more early stage entrepreneurs, we will fill an existing gap in our business eco-system, maximizing our existing resources and driving an increase in the quantity and quality of start-up businesses in this area of Missouri,” said Ronan Molloy, President of Innovation Stockyard.

According to Digital Sandbox’s website, applications are due Aug. 23 and applicants must be available to present in St. Joseph on Sept. 6. Applicants are required to be located within the City of St. Joseph or willing to locate to St. Joseph for startup and scale-up development. CLICK HERE to learn more about the application process.

The Chamber said information about the co-working space and the grant competition will be available at the public launch of the program at 4 p.m., Wednesday, June 28, at Jake’s Restaurant, 620 Edmond Street, in downtown St. Joseph.