Opportunity Overview
Open now. The Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) has issued the FY27 SSBCI Technical Assistance Grant Program — Venture Capital TA Program, Funding Opportunity Number FY27-1, NOFO ID 2932-4337, under CSFA 420-35-2932. The opportunity was posted September 18, 2026 and is funded with federal pass-through State Small Business Credit Initiative resources.
Funding and Deadline
DCEO expects to make one award totaling up to $2,250,000. No cost share or match is required. Indirect costs are allowed subject to the applicable negotiated, State, de minimis, or university rate rules in the NOFO. Applications are due October 19, 2026 at 5:00 PM. The published NOFO does not state a time zone, so Atlas does not infer one. The expected performance period is November 1, 2026 through October 31, 2027.
Purpose and Eligibility
The Venture Capital TA Program seeks a qualified statewide technical-assistance provider to help socially and economically disadvantaged individual-owned businesses and very small businesses access SSBCI-supported capital, especially Illinois INVENT venture-capital funding, and other eligible small-business programs. Eligible primary applicants are legal, accounting, or financial advisory nonprofit or for-profit entities. Applicants must be able to administer all three required service areas — legal, accounting, and financial advisory services — either directly or through a coalition of contractual partners. To qualify as a legal, accounting, or financial advisory firm for this program, an entity must satisfy at least one Treasury criterion: those services are a primary purpose or central mission, the entity regularly markets those services, or at least 25% of its revenues or staff are dedicated to them. DCEO states that SEDI-owned applicants will receive priority consideration.
Allowable Activities
Eligible work includes legal services such as business formation, governance, registrations, licensing, contracts, investment documents and ownership-transfer support; accounting services such as audits, financial statements, record digitization and accounting-practice training; and financial advisory services such as banking relationships, government-program applications, financial analyses, capital-source identification, financial management, investor presentations, financial models and business plans. Eligible award costs are costs of providing these services to qualifying beneficiaries.
Application Requirements
The application package includes the Uniform Grant Application, Uniform Budget, Conflict of Interest Disclosure, Mandatory Disclosure, Program Application, partnership documentation when external partners are used, an SSBCI Venture Capital TA Program SEDI Certification when applicable, and any other required supplemental documentation. Submission is electronic through DCEO’s SmartSheet form. DCEO is offering a non-mandatory technical-assistance session on October 7, 2026 at 2:00 PM.
Atlas Analysis
Atlas Opportunity Score: 58/100. This is a substantial single-award statewide technical-assistance opportunity, but eligibility is specialized and requires demonstrated legal, accounting, and financial advisory capacity. Candidate outreach should therefore be narrowly targeted to organizations that clearly meet the Treasury/DCEO provider definition and can credibly deliver statewide services.
N9+ Fit Score: 0/100. QC Healthcare Fit: 0/100. The funded scope is small-business legal, accounting, financial advisory, and venture-capital readiness assistance. Atlas will not force a clinical-technology use case into this program.
Next Action
Identify qualifying Illinois advisory nonprofits, for-profit professional firms, CDFIs, economic-development organizations, and business-support organizations with sufficient legal, accounting, and financial advisory capacity; verify GATA/SAM eligibility, statewide delivery capability, partner structure, recipient Contact, Email Opt-Out, bounce history, and original-outreach deduplication before any outreach.
Official source: Illinois GATA — SSBCI Technical Assistance Grant Program, NOFO 2932-4337.