The Iowa Start-up Accelerator has received a grant for $150,000 from the Blackstone Charitable Foundation, and the funds will aid the nonprofit as it supports Iowa tech-based start-up companies.

The foundation, founded in 1986, is a global leader in alternative investment managing and financial advising. Since fall of 2013, the Accelerator has helped 19 businesses get their feet off the ground.

To support these businesses, the Accelerator provides mentors into the start-ups to help them learn about what it takes to run a business for 90 days.

Eric Engelmann, the managing director at the Accelerator, said it received the money because Blackstone wanted it to expand. “We received $150,000 for building mentor connections with companies and connections with our corporate partners,” he said. “It will also be used for solving tech constraints by hiring a small, highly skilled team of software developers designed to help new start-ups around Iowa.”

Nancy Quellhorst, the president and CEO of the Iowa City Area Chamber of Commerce, said people often assume that the commerce’s primary request from start-ups is funding.

“But we get at least as many appeals for mentors,” she said. “Our regional economic stability is predicated on building a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem, and the Iowa Start-up Accelerator, ICAD Group, and the Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center are a great complement of resources doing exactly that.”

SwineTech, a company based in Cedar Rapids, was founded in 2015, and the Accelerator aided the business in its initial stages.

Matthew Rooda, the founder of the company, said the Accelerator helped SwineTech get its feet off the ground.

“It exposed us to a vast network of corporate businesses that we would not have been able to do without its involvement,” he said.