The number of Asian-owned businesses in Massachusetts has more than doubled over the past two decades, but some owners faced challenges with obtaining funding and resources, according to a report released today by the Asian Business Empowerment Council, or ABEC.

The report, which surveyed Asian American and Pacific Islander business owners in industries across the state, also offered a suite of recommendations for improvement, including investment in language- and culture-specific technical assistance, increased access to financing and funding, and for large public and private institutions to spend with AAPI businesses.

“The way that we have looked at the research is one of a kind, especially given that a lot of the data on the AAPI population is not this aggregated,” said Qingjian Shi, director of ABEC. “The data that’s out there really does not show what we were hearing on the ground. So, we were trying to do a landscape scan of the AAPI business community.”

The council, founded within the Asian Community Fund at the Boston Foundation, received 221 survey responses last year and spoke to nine focus groups earlier this year to produce the report. Twenty AAPI ethnic communities were represented, with most participants identifying as Cambodian, Chinese, Indian, Korean, or Vietnamese.

Respondents came from across the state, and the businesses represented in the focus groups are located in Boston, Cambridge, Lowell, Malden, Quincy, Springfield, and Worcester. The findings provide a look at participants’ business conditions, as well as, their challenges and how they can be supported.

How well a surveyed business owner said they had been doing in the past 12 months depends on the sector and the specific AAPI community. Certain Asian ethnic groups are overrepresented in specific industries — Vietnamese Americans, for example, own more nail salons than other groups, the study said. So if conditions have worsened in the past year, it’s likely to disproportionally affect one group more than others.

Overall, however, more than 40 percent of businesses that provide services, such as food, nail salons, and dry cleaners, reported conditions that were “worse or much worse.” In other sectors, things are not so grim. Forty percent of respondents in the health care and social assistance sectors said they were doing “better or much better” over the past year.

Business owners who identified themselves as immigrants or who said they are “more comfortable in a language other than English” were more likely to report that business conditions had worsened over the past year.

Across the board, the top challenges survey respondents cited included: hiring qualified employees, having fewer customers, wages keeping up with inflation, obtaining capital or funding, and supply chain issues. Also, about 1 in 5 reported that the business experienced a negative impact from “anti-Asian attitudes or behaviors.”

Survey respondents also found it difficult to access funding through grants, low-interest loans, or new resources. More than two-thirds of AAPI business owners said they needed help obtaining grants.

Instead, 41 percent of survey respondents would use the owner’s personal funds for financial support.

“I invite people, AAPI businesses, those who are providing business support in the state, legislators, really anybody who wants to get involved to connect with us and help us make Massachusetts a place that’s welcome to all communities, business communities,” Shi said.

This story was produced by the Globe’s Money, Power, Inequality team, which covers the racial wealth gap in Greater Boston. You can sign up for the newsletter here.

Lauren Booker can be reached at lauren.booker@globe.com.