Entrepreneurs: Line up here for $330M in special offers, via Startup America

The Startup America Partnership announced today that it is accepting applications from startups that want to tap into its vast resources of incentives for entrepreneurs and young companies.

The partnership is a privately funded initiative that was launched in January, 2011 at a White House ceremony. There’s a corresponding government entity called, confusingly, the Startup America Initiative.

But it’s the Startup America Partnership that new companies may want to pay special attention to. The organization has secured $330 million in commitments from its partners, including companies like Dell, Intuit, Google, Facebook, American Express and others.

These commitments are essentially offers to provide free or discounted goods and services to qualifying startups. For instance, Dell will offer 40% discounts on laptops to companies that are accepted into the Startup America program.

The partnership currently has a few hundred startups on its lists, but is today opening the doors to any company that wants to apply for membership. Its goal is to qualify 100,000 startups by the end of 2012.

Startup America’s CEO is Scott Case, the founding chief technology officer at Priceline.com.

The organization is not intended to be a permanent institution, and has a 3-year time horizon. If its goals of fostering entrepreneurship and company formation are met, it may wind down after that.

Startup America is sponsoring a video lounge and is shooting photos and videos at the DEMO Fall 2011 conference here in Silicon Valley. VentureBeat is a co-producer of the conference.

Photo: Startup America CEO Scott Case together with LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman. Courtesy Startup America.

Related articles

• Startup America Partnership Announces $400 Million in Support (startupamericapartnership.org)
• Entrepreneurs will strut their stuff at Mega Startup Weekend (venturebeat.com)