The Kansas Technology Enterprise Corp. has started a second program to help fund emerging technology companies.

KTEC officials announced Monday the creation of the Technology Commercialization Seed Fund. The program will provide as much as $250,000 in funding for companies that have a technology product ready to enter the marketplace.

The seed fund will be in addition to a similar program, the Applied Research Matching Fund, that provides funding to companies that don’t yet have a product to market but rather are still researching one.

The program will be the first time KTEC, which is a state-sponsored economic development organization, has been able to fund a company that is beyond the research and development stage.

“We think this will better allow us to help companies advance up the ladder,” said Michael Peck, KTEC’s vice president of investments and portfolio management. “Before we felt we could only help companies up to that first rung of the ladder.”

To qualify for the funding, the companies must be able to provide 150 percent in matching funds. No single company will be able to receive more than $375,000 from the two programs combined.

KTEC is using $1.5 million from its budget that it previously had used to fund just the Applied Research Matching Fund. Peck said KTEC would split the funding between the two programs, although he said it hadn’t been decided how much money would be devoted to each program.

He said the two programs were expected to serve about 10 companies per year. That’s slightly less than the approximately 12 companies the Applied Research Matching Fund served per year. Peck said the number would decline because some companies would qualify for both programs in the same year.

“The number of deals we do with these new guidelines probably will drop by about two or three a year, but we think the quality of our investments will be better,” Peck said.

The funding KTEC provides to a company typically isn’t repaid like a loan, but instead gives the organization partial ownership of the company.

Information on applying for the program is at www.ktec.com