Blended Impact & Center for Social Innovation, UCR Release the 2021 IE Innovation Ecosystem Highlights

September 2022 - In April 2021, Blended Impact partnered with UCR’s Center for Social Innovation on a comprehensive report of the Inland Empire innovation ecosystem. The report analyzed the history of Riverside and San Bernardino counties, key emerging industries, and a comprehensive directory of the innovation-focused initiatives and incubators/accelerators thru 2020.

Blended Impact performed Crunchbase analysis covering all for-profit entities tagged in the Inland Empire hub producing a companion guide covering major funding events and trends, geomapping industry clusters, and other key data used in the report.

This 2021 Ecosystem Highlights is focused on

1) identifying funding availability and velocity for innovation-related ventures in the region per Crunchbase

and KingsCrowd

2) measuring innovation-related job postings and talent availability in the region via Burning Glass and IPEDs

3) benchmarking the Inland Empire according to five components of the Innovation Index as classified

by Stats America, a composite index funded by the Federal Economic Development Administration, and

4) synthesizing local, national, and statewide activities and priorities into an actionable oriented format.

Our goals were to share notable company activity to illustrate the growth and impact of investments in R&D and the companies scaling them over time on the region, highlight new developments, initiatives, and opportunities for entrepreneurs in the region to pursue more “opportunity entrepreneurship” compared to “necessity entrepreneurship”, and build a stronger and more connected innovation ecosystem both locally and across Southern California.