MONEY

Year of milestones for Tennessee entrepreneurs

Charlie Brock
For The Tennessean

Tennessee is known for its ability to foster entrepreneurship and business growth by facilitating connections between startups and capital. In 2014, the state continued to forge those relationships, but also provided many more innovative ways to grow business that attracted the attention of investors across the Southeast and around the nation.

Accelerator network

Tennessee’s unique accelerator network continues to draw in entrepreneurs from Tennessee, the Southeast and the nation. This has been remarkable for the quantity of companies screened and accelerated through the network. We’ve placed greater emphasis on the quality as well, making sure that the companies who enter into, and engage with, our accelerators are primed for success.

When it comes to new-business development, numbers matter. The network held more than 2,000 screenings this year — one-hour meetings with any entrepreneur who wanted to find out about the accelerators and options for support for his or her company. They also held more than 600 events, ranging from meet-and-greets to angel-investor education meetings and pitch contests.

Our accelerators continue to expand their scope and quality of services. They are a calling card for this state as we attract and develop more entrepreneurs and companies from around the state and country.

Capital investment

2014 has been a record year of investment and we are off to a good start in meeting our goal of $1 billion by Dec. 31, 2017. It’s ambitious, but we believe it is completely obtainable, based on the interest we’re seeing from the financial sector and the entrepreneurial growth across the state.

This investment level is a huge win for our state and can be attributed in part to the creation of programs like TNInvestco and the INCITE Co-Investment Fund, which was created with the federal funds received through the U.S. Treasury’s State Small Business Credit Initiative. The INCITE Co-Investment Fund, which is managed by LaunchTN, began in 2011 with $29.7 million to put toward Tennessee businesses. Today, more than $22 million of INCITE dollars have been invested, leveraging an additional $73 million in private capital.

Most important, early-stage private capital is flowing again in Tennessee. We now have a record number of Tennessee-based angel funds, and several established venture funds have raised significant new funds in 2014. All this activity bodes well for our entrepreneurs and gives us hope that our $1 billion goal can be obtained.

36/86

We also had our second successful technology and entrepreneur conference, which now will be known as 36/86 to reflect Nashville’s coordinates on the map. We were due to shake things up a bit, and the name change is the first of many innovations that will make the 2015 event bigger and better than its two predecessors.

The TENN

We wrapped up our inaugural class of The TENN this year, and several of the companies are making substantial progress in scaling their businesses.

We’re now working with the second class, putting these founders together with Master Mentors and topical experts who are increasing their working knowledge of everything from marketing and public relations to technology, finance and legal issues. The TENN is performing as we had hoped in terms of gaining traction with customers and investors. The first quarter of 2015 will be a great showcase for them as we conduct road shows across the state, as well as in New York and California.

Specialist program

Continuing to build the talent pipeline backward into universities and secondary schools remains a goal for the state’s ongoing economic development initiatives. To help with that, LaunchTN introduced the Blackstone Specialist Program this year.

Five accelerator programs recruited 27 students (12 from Tennessee schools, 15 from out-of-state schools) to serve as specialists over their summer vacation. Working with accelerator staff as well as the participating startups, the specialists were able to gain experience in areas such as graphic design, customer discovery, computer programming, marketing and financial and event planning.

The program was a great success, and now recruitment is beginning for the 2015 spring and summer specialist classes.

Corporate engagement/reverse pitch

Another key goal at LaunchTN is not just putting our entrepreneurial class in front of major companies, but also working with existing corporations to solve their issues. To that end, we have created initiatives such as our Reverse Pitch program, which brings representatives from major companies into a room with developers and entrepreneurs. They put their pain points out there, and then the attendees get to work on innovative solutions. Corporations that participated in our inaugural Reverse Pitch event included AC Entertainment/Aloompa, Blackstone, city of Chattanooga, DeRoyal, EPB, FedEx, PlayCore, Smith & Nephew and Unum. Programming like this is vital for LaunchTN because it hones in on one of our core functions: connecting talent with business.

As we look back on 2014, we are proud of the progress made across the state in strengthening Tennessee’s entrepreneurial landscape. We at LaunchTN hope to continue this momentum into the new year. Through all that we do, it is our goal to open doors for entrepreneurs that otherwise might stay shut. We want to build on the successes of 2014 and continue to be a viable driver of business and innovation for 2015 and many years to come.

Charlie Brock is CEO of Launch Tennessee (www.launchtn.org), a public-private partnership focused on supporting the development of high-growth companies in Tennessee with the ultimate goal of making Tennessee the No. 1 state in the Southeast for entrepreneurs to start and grow a company.