To qualify for maximum assistance, an SBIC’s fund had to be no bigger than $450,000; this deprived SBICs of the scale necessary to retain competent professionals. SBICs could not compensate their investment staff with stock options, nor could they invest more than $60,000 into a portfolio company, making it hard to prime startups with adequate capital.[2] Even the boss of the SBIC program grew exasperated. “The rules were drawn on
