by Jeroslyn JoVonn
February 4, 2026
Detroit has launched a microgrant program to assist native small companies undertake important expertise and drive financial progress.
Detroit is boosting its native enterprise sector with a brand new fund providing $1,000 microgrants to small, city-based companies.
The Detroit Small Enterprise Expertise Fund is designed to assist town’s smallest companies undertake important expertise. Backed by the Rocket Neighborhood Fund, it’ll present $1,000 grants to 140 Detroit-based companies with 10 or fewer workers and beneath $500,000 in annual income.
“Small companies are the center of Detroit’s economic system, and so they deserve entry to the instruments that assist them develop and succeed,” Mayor Mary Sheffield stated in an announcement. “This funding will make it simpler for neighborhood small companies to modernize, attain extra prospects, and function extra effectively.”
The grants are tech-focused, with recipients inspired to make use of them for {hardware}, software program, and rising tech instruments that improve each day operations, together with laptops, point-of-sale techniques, accounting and e-commerce software program, and AI platforms.
“Robust neighborhoods are anchored by thriving small companies,” stated Justin Onwenu, director of the Workplace of Small Enterprise Providers and Financial Alternative for the Metropolis of Detroit. “After we put money into our small companies, we put money into the households they assist, the roles they supply, the communities they serve, and the longer term we’re constructing collectively.”
Administered by Detroit Financial Development Company (DEGC), the expertise fund is designed round an area financial movement mannequin in partnership with 9 trusted enterprise and neighborhood organizations that can establish grantees.
Every companion will award 10 to twenty grants to small companies, which should be affiliated with one of many companion organizations to qualify. Taking part teams embody the Southwest Detroit Enterprise Affiliation, Michigan Black Enterprise Alliance, and Michigan Ladies Ahead.
“Expertise is now not elective. It’s foundational,” stated Sean Grey, DEGC’s vp of small enterprise providers. “By giving Detroit microbusinesses entry to trendy instruments and connecting them with trusted assist organizations, we’re strengthening Detroit’s native economic system from the bottom up.”
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