You’re an entrepreneur starting a venture with high-growth potential. You have a promising business plan and the drive and enthusiasm needed to take your product or idea to market. The problem? Credit cards are maxed out. You’ve borrowed all you can from friends and family (still managing to keep your relationships intact). The banks aren’t ready to talk to you - and don’t even think about angel investors.

Enter the AdvantageWest Opportunity Fund, an evergreen loan started by AdvantageWest to provide high-growth startups in Western North Carolina with the early-stage funding needed to launch or expand their business.

AdvantageWest, the regional economic development partnership serving North Carolina’s 23 westernmost counties, launched the initiative in 2007. Six years later, AdvantageWest has leveraged its initial investment of $40,000 to…

From the crew at Noble Cider...

Friday May 17, 2013 ASHEVILLE, NC - Asheville’s first hard cider company, Noble Cider, hosts a public release of its inaugural small batch at the Wedge Brewing Company, on Wednesday June 5, from 4:30 PM to 7:30 PM. The Noble crew will be onsite to meet and greet, answer questions, and enjoy Noble Cider with Asheville.

Party goers can help Noble Cider raise funds for their fall batch by purchasing t-shirts, pint glasses, and stickers at the event.

“Noble Cider has brought together Western North Carolina’s rich history of agriculture with its exciting craft beverage industry,” said co-founder and cider maker Trevor Baker. “We think Asheville is going to love our product. It’s not too sweet and it’s a great warm weather beverage.” 

The Wedge, Noble Cider’s first “Core Partner”, announced via social media earlier this month that they’ll be putting Noble on tap…

Accelerating Appalachia^TM, the nation’s first business accelerator focused on nature-based companies, has officially launched and is seeking entrepreneurs for its inaugural class. The mentor and investor driven program is aimed at attracting and growing innovative, high-impact ventures in areas such as food products, agroforestry, fiber, green building, craft brewing/distilling, nutraceuticals, biomaterials and clean energy.

Participants selected for the program will spend an intensive 12 weeks with seasoned entrepreneurs and proven practitioners who will serve as mentors and coaches, helping with all aspects of business development, particularly financing. At the end of this session, which begins in September, two peer-selected entrepreneurs will each receive a $50,000 investment.…

“Small Talks” Bus Tour to Stop in Asheville

Events Shines a Spotlight on Area’s…

Brevard-based company SylvanSport, makers of the lightweight pop up camping trailer GO, have teamed up with AdvantageWest to present 18 Western North Carolina gear-making companies in a special Outdoor Gear Builders Village at the 13^th annual Mountain Sports Festival in Asheville, NC, on May 24-26. Upwards of 15,000 visitors are expected to attend the festival. The Outdoor Gear Builders Village will be the inception for a new network of over 20 local gear-making companies uniting to form the Outdoor Gear Builders of Western North Carolina.

Inspired by a Growing Industry

For SylvanSport, the inspiration to create a local gear-manufacturing network to debut in the Mountain Sports Festival made perfect sense. Hosted in Asheville, NC—the hub of outdoor living on the East Coast—Mountain Sports Festival invites visitors to explore and compete in a myriad of mountain sports, with music, entertainment and exhibitors rounding out the…

Asheville's Rightline Gear, a maker of outdoor products including tents and cargo bags, has a great feature story in the current edition the Citizen-Times' Ideas section.  Read the full post here: http://avlne.ws/13QwFcF

Application Due: 7/15/2013

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Eligible Entities: State governments, county governments, city or township governments, special district governments, federally recognized Native American tribal governments, Native American tribal organizations, public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, independent school districts, public and State controlled institutions of higher education, nonprofits, private institutions of higher education



The USDA National Urban and Community Forestry Advisory Council seeks grant proposals to address the following priority issues: 1) Making Urban Trees and Forests More Resilient to the Impacts of Natural Disasters and the long-term Impacts of Climate Change; 2) Green Infrastructure Jobs Analysis; 3) Utilizing Green Infrastructure to Manage and Mitigate Stormwater to Improve Water Quality. Potential grantees should work collaboratively with other organizations and entities not traditionally involved in…

"For the first time in human history, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached 400 parts per million (ppm)."

See the Washington Post Article:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/atmospheric-carbon-dioxide-levels-hit-worrisome-milestone/2013/05/10/7cfe450c-b9a4-11e2-b94c-b684dda07add_story.html