PROGRAM OVERVIEW
Inner City Capital Connections (ICCC) is a national program designed to stimulate equity capital flow to underserved inner city markets by matching inner city businesses with investors. ICCC is a partnership between the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC) and Bank of America Capital Access Funds (BACAF).

The ICCC program was developed as a result of ICIC research revealing that fastgrowing inner city businesses typically have very limited sources of growth capital. Most inner city companies rely on borrowings from friends and family or bank debt to fund expansion, and did not consider private equity an option due to lack of awareness and/or access to such networks. The ICCC program was therefore developed to promote private equity as an alternative financing option for inner city businesses.

IMPACT

Four ICCC events have already occurred: ICCC Los Angeles 2005, ICCC New York 2006, ICCC Miami 2006, and ICCC Chicago 2007. Since the inaugural ICCC, close to 150 inner city companies have completed a rigorous application process and 71 equity-ready companies have been selected to participate. Results from companies involved in past ICCC events include:

üAccess to Capital – Inner city companies have raised more than $140 million in growth capital. This is an impressive 75% percent more than the initial funding sought by companies prior to attending ICCC.

üNetwork Creation – After attending ICCC, a majority of the participants received between 4 and 10 contacts through the ICCC process.

üBusiness of Size and Scale – A majority of ICCC participants experienced incremental and transformational strategy change for their business and a significant increase in employment.