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Providing capital to start-up businesses and helping them find top management talent is “almost like a relay race,” says Karen Merrick, who heads the Innovation and Commercialization Division of the Iowa Department of Economic Development (IDED).

“You’re going to have a lot more people to hand the ball off to ahead of you if they’ve been involved with it,” she said.

One arena in which the state hopes to foster those kinds of hand-offs is the Iowa Entrepreneur Network (www.iowaentrepreneur.com). Merrick’s division recently enhanced the Web site to provide a forum in which start-up companies can connect with consultants or hire temporary executive talent, adding on to an existing component that helps start-ups connect with venture capital companies or angel investors.

The IDED took over the Web site more than a year ago from the Iowa Business Council, which developed the site. The division has spent the past year gathering feedback on how to best retool the site to make it more effective.

“We pulled together five focus groups to ask them what they would like to see on the site,” said Doug Lewis, an IDED entrepreneurial development specialist. “Our overall goal is more connections between (companies) and investors.” The groups involved in the focus groups were the Iowa Small Business Development Centers, the Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Centers, the state’s Business Accelerators, the Iowa Business Council and the Iowa Farm Bureau’s Renew Rural Iowa program.

From those meetings, it became clear that start-up companies’ management talent gaps are at least as wide as their financing gaps, Merrick said.

“We have enough resources,” Merrick said. “(The challenge is) getting these companies connected with the right resources. We’re getting the two groups talking with the intent of increasing the deal flow.”

The newest component of the Web site is access to the Management Talent Recruitment Program, through which start-up companies in the biosciences, advanced manufacturing and information technology industries can apply for up to $10,000 in state funds to temporarily hire a consultant or executive. For each dollar of state funds granted, the company must provide two dollars in matching funds.

“We want companies to understand this is available, and to find out what sorts of positions are available in their companies,” Lewis said. “We are not really acting as a recruiting organization, but more of a clearinghouse.” The state has set aside $160,000 this fiscal year for the program, but could shift more funds to the program if needed.

Currently, IDED is using the Web site to manually match up requests for talent by forwarding requests between individuals seeking positions and the companies, Lewis said. “We’re looking for ways we can provide a unified database. Hopefully in the future it will be more automatic,” he said.

The management talent program was originally designed to recruit high-tech talent to Iowa from outside the state, said Mark Laurenzo, biosciences coordinator for the IDED.

“But then the world economy took a nose dive, so we found that individual management talent (from within the state) was calling us directly,” he said. “So we’re requesting that the rules be changed to allow in-state talent to be hired through the program.” The rule change would also expand eligibility to companies that are 5 years old or less, rather than the current limitation of 3-year-old or younger companies.

To addresss start-up companies’ funding needs, the Web site serves as a portal to Angelsoft (www.angelsoft.net), a nationwide database that connects potential individual investors and angel investor networks with potential deals. Lewis said the number of Iowa start-up companies soliciting investors on the site, which is open only to registered users, ranges from about 25 to 50 at any one time.

One way in which the IDED hopes to spur increased investment activity is by inviting some of the companies that have applied on Angelsoft to present to potential the upcoming Iowa Venture Capital & Entrepreneur Conference scheduled Oct. 6-7 at Hy-Vee Hall in Des Moines.