Tennessee entrepreneurship: 2015 in review

2015 was a year filled with incredible activity and tremendous traction throughout Tennessee's business community. More and more people are looking at Tennessee as a leader on innovative ways to grow businesses and as a state with the right ingredients to build a sustainable ecosystem. We at Launch Tennessee help tell the story and initiate some of the programming in our mission to make Tennessee the No. 1 place for entrepreneurs to start and grow a company. Judging from the 2015 program updates below, the past year has been filled with great success and has set the stage for what will be a very exciting 2016.

Statewide entrepreneurship network

Tennessee’s unique entrepreneur center network continues to draw in entrepreneurs from Tennessee, the Southeast and the nation. Considering that the majority of these entities did not exist at the inception of LaunchTN in 2012, the activity level and outcomes have been tremendous. On an annual, aggregate basis, the statewide network averages over 2,000 screenings (one-hour meetings with entrepreneurs), holds over 500 events and graduates 100 potential high-growth companies through 13-week boot-camp style accelerator cohort programs. On average, 25 percent of these companies come from outside the state.

They are also providing significant “basic entrepreneur training” through programs like CO.STARTERS and elevating workforce development in the technology arena with coding camps.  The entire mix of activity, which has also tried to take advantage of key regional industry strengths, has all led to our state being recognized nationally for taking an innovative approach to entrepreneurship and been a calling card for us as we develop relationships with investors across the state, region and country.

The TENN

In Spring 2015, we celebrated the completion of our second annual master accelerator program, The TENN. Nine companies participated in the program, offering a wide variety of industry focuses including: 3-D printing, agriculture technology and medical devices. Since it's inception, TENN alumni companies have raised nearly $7 million in capital investments. You can view the 2014-2015 program recap video here.

In October, we kicked off our 2015-2016 program, which includes eight teams, focused in large scale industrial 3-D printing, music technology, children's media, medical waste technology and more. Over the past two months, the teams have participated in high-quality Learning Days on a variety of business topics such as legal, marketing/sales, human capital and culture. Learn more about our current cohort here.

Capital investment

2015 has been another record year for investment in early-stage companies and we are well on our way to meeting our goal of $1 billion by 12/31/17. The increased investment activity is a huge win for the state and is a great indication for future capital growth across the state.

The INCITE Co-Investment Fund, which LaunchTN oversees, has seen a great deal of activity throughout the past year.  In the third tranche of our INCITE fund, we have invested over $4 million into 13 companies, matching $14.7 million from private investors. To date, over $111 million has been invested into Tennessee early-stage companies through the INCITE Co-Investment Fund.

36|86

We successfully hosted our annual technology and entrepreneur conference, which was rebranded to 36|86.  For the 2015 event, 36|86 had 900+ attendees, 120+ investors representing 86 firms, 34 start-ups from 7 Southeastern states and Washington, D.C., and keynotes and fireside chats with Eventbrite, Warby Parker and Uber. Prior to the conference, the 34 start-ups had raised a total of $18.6 million and have since raised a combined $8.7 million.

Planning for this year’s event is well underway, so look for speaker and other programming announcements in the coming weeks and visit launchtn.org for more details.

As we look back on 2015, 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 this new year. We want to build on 2015’s successes and continue being a driver for our state’s entrepreneurs for 2016 and years to come.

Charlie Brock is CEO of Launch Tennessee, 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.