Another 1,100 Massachusetts small businesses will split $45.3 million in grants designed to keep them afloat during the COVID-19 crisis, the Baker administration announced Thursday.
The fifth round of funding awards pushes the total awarded to $277 million since Gov. Charlie Baker unveiled the relief program in December.
After touring Plymouth’s 1620 Winery on Thursday, Baker told reporters that the effort — combining a $688 million relief fund and another $50.8 million included in a separate economic recovery package — is the “largest small business grant program of its kind in the country.”
“About a third of these grantees have received no other aid of any kind,” Baker said. “This is a $720 million program, so we obviously have a long way to go and a lot of opportunity to continue to support small businesses as they work their way through the second surge.”
Additional grant announcements will continue “pretty much every week,” Baker said, as the administration sifts through applications submitted to the Massachusetts Growth Capital Corporation.
The program prioritizes relief for businesses that have been hit particularly hard by capacity restrictions and mandatory shutdowns, such as restaurants and those in the entertainment sector.
