UND's Center for Innovation Foundation has received an important designation that's expected to draw millions of dollars of private investment and create new jobs in the region.
Sen. Kent Conrad and John Hoeven announced that the foundation was approved last week to begin operating as an EB-5 Regional Center, the only one of its kind in North Dakota and Minnesota.
CEO Bruce Gjovig said the designation will offer local entrepreneurs an "incredible new tool" to attract equity investment from overseas. In exchange, international investors whose money leads to business growth and new jobs in the region will get a provisional green card and, eventually, be given permanent residency status.
"We've been working with equity capital for a very long time, and this is another tool in the tool chest for entrepreneurs and angel investors to be working together on high-growth ventures," he said.
The EB-5 program was authorized by Congress in 1990. To date, it has attracted more than $1 billion in foreign investment and created thousands of new jobs across the U.S.
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Gjovig said the Center for Innovation Foundation began the "complex, complicated" process of receiving the designation two years ago. Officials submitted more than 300 pages of documentation, and Conrad and Hoeven sent a letter to federal officials earlier this year saying the EB program is "ideally suited and designed" for rural regions like ours.
"It is imperative that our federal government and the private sector work together to foster job growth and capital investment to bring jobs to the unemployed and underemployed in regions like North Dakota and northwest Minnesota," the senators wrote.
Gjovig said their successful work to get the designation is a "huge" achievement for the Center for Innovation Foundation.
"The fact that this is the only one in the region speaks to its difficulty to obtain," he said.
The foundation will first look for local companies that are interested in attracting foreign investment, and then will work closely with the North Dakota Trade Office to target investors in China, South Korea, India, Brazil, Canada, Norway and other countries.
"North Dakota's been exporting for a very long time," he said. "This is a chance now to attract international funds."
The designation's impact on the Center for Innovation Foundation is still "to be determined," but Gjovig said it has the potential to bring tens of millions of dollars of new investment to the region each year.
