It was a refreshing change for this year’s Venture Atlanta with a return to an in-person conference. After nearly 18 months of being apart, it was great to meet up with friends and acquaintances face to face to celebrate one of the country’s largest investor events. Even with the requirement of presenting a COVID-19 vaccine card or negative test results for entry, the positive energy was nearly palpable.
I especially enjoyed the panel “Building a Unicorn in the Southeast,” which included companies with that well-known valuation of $1 billion or greater. When presenters were asked why they chose to start their “unicorn” in the Southeast, myriad reasons were provided, including the wealth of software-engineering talent we have coming out of Georgia Tech, the University of Georgia, and other regional universities. For computer programmers, the potential for gaining equity in a rising startup—as opposed to offering their talents to established companies like Facebook or Google—provides a strong reason for remaining in the Southeast.
One panel presenter, Tim Sheehan, founder of Atlanta-based Greenlight, notably expounded on his phrase of “nail it and scale it,” which addressed the need for startups to hit specific milestones in their growth prior to seeking investment capital. Unicorn Greenlight creates debit cards for kids, which empowers parents to teach money management and the power of saving.
While there were of course lots of amazing fintech and cybersecurity solutions among the presenting and showcase companies, I took special note of the following startups with offerings that are especially in tune with our current times:
- HealthSnap, an integrated virtual care platform that helps manage patient chronic conditions remotely
- Inclusivv, which helps brands, communities, and individuals facilitate culture change
- Kanarys, a provider of tools that organizations need to create long-term systemic change around diversity, equity, and inclusion challenges
- NetOne Recruiter, which is reimagining how companies scale recruiting capacity, providing them with on-demand direct access to pre-vetted gig recruiters through a digital marketplace
- Nufabrx, which is disrupting the healthcare industry by putting medicine directly into clothing
- Pinwheel, which helps parents introduce and teach healthy smartphone habits to their kids
- TSOLife, a technology solution for senior living operators that easily captures resident data, curates it into analytics for corporate and community-level decision making, and distributes it for staff to use in interactions with residents
Overall, 91 companies were featured at the annual conference. To view the full list of selected companies, go here.
Now in its 14th year, Venture Atlanta has helped launch more than 500 companies and raise $6.5 billion in funding to date. Those selected to present and be showcased this year also represented Venture Atlanta’s most diverse group to date, with over 50 percent of presenting and showcased companies being led by underrepresented founders.
Although it remains a largely investor-focused conference, this year Venture Atlanta also offered a panel on alternative funding sources for those companies that choose not to go the seed funding and venture investment capital route.
While Venture Atlanta offers one of the very best online conference experiences (which was also an option again this year for those who did not attend in person), I immensely enjoyed being “up close and personal” with longtime friends and associates and seeing so many promising new ventures present on stage.
As always, a huge thank you to all those who worked so diligently to make Venture Atlanta Momentum 2021 what it was—a huge success.