Lisa
This is Lisa Calhoun and I’m founding General Partner at Valor Ventures. Welcome to the Atlanta Startup Podcast where we talk to the innovators and the activators that make Atlanta the tech capital of the East Coast. I’m excited about TIE Atlanta, our guest today for the program. I’m going to let these amazing people introduce themselves. This is an organization that if you’re not already a part of, you’re really going to want to be by the end of this show. Tell us a little about your role and TIE.
Amyn Sadruddin
Thanks, Lisa, and glad to be on. I’m Amyn Sadruddin. I’m currently the Executive Director for TIE Atlanta, which is a nonprofit focused on entrepreneurship and giving resources to the community that we’re in, the chapter itself. We’re part of a global ecosystem. We have about 61 chapters around the world and again, the mission being the same is to provide resources for entrepreneurs through the programs that we do. Each chapter has its own resources or the resource pools that they do in programs and for us, you know, as vibrant as Atlanta is, we have a lot of elements to our organization. We have an Angel investment fund. We have a youth track where we house two big initiatives. One is a high school program, a university program and we also have an advisory board program. We also do a conference, so we have a lot of touchpoints for entrepreneurs to be able to get connected within the ecosystem. So, that’s a little bit about TIE Atlanta. In my personal background, I’m a communications and marketing major. I have dabbled in doing a startup but failed because of the lack of experience and know-how as well, and that’s what kind of led me to join the organization and also participate in a lot of the elements. Early on, I helped lead a few cohorts that were focused around giving startups the roadmap of what they need to know about the community here in Atlanta and to really know exactly how to access some of the resources that are provided not only by TIE Atlanta but just the community here, right? ATDC, Atlanta Tech Village, all the numerous networking events that we have, and how to really grasp which elements you need to take advantage of, and how to really do that.
Lisa
Well, you are a super high energy dynamic leader. Having been in the rooms that you’re leading, your energy just really comes across so I hope people take that opportunity.
Amyn Sadruddin
Does this help? Something like this? [energetic motion]
Lisa
And we also have JP James with us. Welcome to the program, JP.
JP James
Hello, everybody. I’m JP James. I’m the current president of TIE Atlanta for 2020 and 2021. We have a large amount of commitment in leadership and I think that’s what helps for entrepreneurs. You want to know that the people that you’re connecting to are going to have continuity to support you as you grow your company from year to year and that’s what TIE Atlanta has really taught me over the past five years. How you can get help, support, and commitment through an amazing network of very humble, very successful entrepreneurs that want to give back. My journey, I’ve been in Atlanta for the past couple of decades. Starting and failing in a lot of different companies and a lot of different industries. But thankfully, having great mentors, really great capital connections, and having the humility to bring together amazing teams, we’ve had some amazing success in a lot of the ventures I’ve worked with. That’s why I felt over the past several years, how can I give back more to the greater Atlanta community and beyond because TIE as a global organization has that reach?
Lisa
What is the Atlanta organization like in terms of size scale? If someone came to one of your digital events during this period or one of your physical events, what would they see? Because one of the things I like about TIE is it’s one of the most diverse organizations in tech.
JP James
So, I’ll take that. It has been amazing growth. I think whenever I started four years ago, they said it was the best-kept secret. I can definitely tell you, it’s not a secret anymore. TIE has really been embracing, not only a diverse community, but the size and scope are pretty amazing.
We have about 85 different events in a year. So, you’re spanning now with our new program from middle school, high school, university, postgraduate, and then the entire life cycle. There are so many different programs that are involved which create an intimacy where you have anywhere from 30 on the short side to over 100 plus but even at our conferences, you know, almost four or five hundred people come out to these programs, but with a larger and greater expanded community of the TIE network. We’ve got a lot more programming internationally that we’ve all been engaged in from the leadership standpoint. It’s really exciting and there’s a lot of diversity.
We usually see two to three thousand people throughout the year uniquely that engage with the organization. No matter what size, shape, look, feel that your company and you are, there’s going to be a community that TIE Atlanta can help you connect with.
Lisa
One of the things I love about the evolution of the organization, especially here locally in Atlanta, is how you’ve renewed your commitment to diversity and inclusion. I’d love to hear a little bit more from either of you about that journey because I think it’s a journey that all of us are on here in Atlanta together. Hearing how your organization is working through how to be more inclusive at many different levels, I think I’d love for you to share.
Amyn Sadruddin
And I’ll take that. Everyone knows Atlanta is so vibrant, and there are so many different types of entrepreneurs, and a lot of that, you know, in terms of our mission of providing mentorship throughout the entire ecosystem, that’s what we focused on. And now, we’ve done a better job in including partners. Startup Runway is a partner with some of the programmings that we’re doing, ATDC, Atlanta Tech Village, and also the local chambers.
That is added to a huge catalyst in us bringing together that diversity pool and then really articulating the mentorship that we provide. One of the, I would say, secret sauces of the organization, if you don’t already know, is that we have so many subject matter experts throughout various industries like JP that have gone through startups, that have raised capital, excited, and again, done it all over again. Utilizing those people and highlighting them to be able to say “Raise your hand, we want you available” and then have them participate in whatever mentoring mechanisms that we have. When you talk about, “What does a typical program look like?” Anything and everything that we do will always incorporate mentoring even if you attend a pitch competition and even if you attend a networking event. We even have happy hours that incorporate mentoring, where you grab a beer and we have roundtables with different topics where you can get connected to a subject matter expert or someone that’s grown through the marketing industry, engineering industry, manufacturing, and you have a beer with them. You just get to have a conversation about what they’ve done and how they can help you. Including that process within all of our partners, and then also letting them know that “Hey, we can help fill that piece because we have this huge Rolodex within our local chapter and also globally.” It’s one of the silver linings with Corona and COVID right now is that we’ve been so connected with the other chapters that now we have 15,000 chapters globally that we can connect anyone to startups here in Atlanta with to the other chapters.
JP James
I’ll add on to that.
What’s been amazing from a historical standpoint of the organization is it was started by minorities who wanted to get connected and build a network to support each other.
Lisa, you’ve taught me and I’ve stolen it and I’ve used it a million times in my communications is understanding the difference between over and underrepresented. The Indian descent community is fairly overrepresented both on the Capitol and CEOs of companies in the United States but also regionally. Our effort has been focused on how we can create a more open and inclusive community that embraces people who are underrepresented. Having programs and partnerships like Startup Runway and really focusing on providing an open architecture for individuals of every type of background to come into the organization and get specifically supported, that’s what the TIE access program is all about.
So TIE access, the short version, is if you are an entrepreneur that is underrepresented; female, black, Hispanic, or of different ethnicity that isn’t getting the support that you need or wants extra support of where you’re going.
The TIE Access Program is a mentoring focused program that connects you with very seasoned successful entrepreneurs, executives, and gets you the connections and relationships you need as you’re going through this whole process and this whole journey. Our partnership and sponsorship of Startup Runway make it that much more powerful.
This allows us to highlight on a big stage, and now virtually on a big stage, what we can do together to empower those communities. I think I’m slightly biased because I have four daughters and they’re going to be growing up in a completely different world. A different universe than we did when we were growing up. I think it’s a personal challenge of mine of how do you create an ecosystem that not only is exciting but empowers you through this whole struggle and journey. I used to call this whole journey the living nightmare of building companies up and down, left and right. But with partners and the mentorship and the guidance of not only the TIE access program, the TIE Atlanta community to Startup Runway community, but you also don’t really feel like it’s a nightmare. Or at least it’s a shared nightmare, worst-case scenario. But that’s what’s really been exciting in this coming year.
Lisa
I think that’s a fantastic position to have. TIE does have a unique place of strength in that origin story because while now Indians may be slightly overrepresented, that’s through a journey of strength and empowerment that the community created for itself and made happen. So to have that information get put into our ecosystem now through the Atlanta chapter of TIE at this time in history, I think it’s just so exciting. I think it’s a really critical moment. I’m thrilled that TIE Access here in Atlanta is reaching out through vehicles like Startup Runway–so let’s tell people a little bit more about that. For the first time on September 9th, which happens to be 9/9 and it’s also our ninth cohort so that’s a lot of fun, we’re going to add on TIE Access as a co-host. That’s just been announced. What it brings to our cohorts of underrepresented founders is access to terrific Angels and although the program access is new, Angels with TIE have a great history. I’d love for you to share a little bit more about your Angel investing program because I think it’s unique, it’s strong, and it’s really needed in our community right now.
JP James
So, TIE Atlanta Angels. Wow, it’s in its third iteration. I was there for the first two iterations but everybody who’s done any type of Angel investing, whether it’s like 5000 or $1,000, in your kid startup or your friend’s startup, you know, we all are contributing to that economic development where the risk is super high and there’s so much uncertainty.
So, in this iteration of TIE Atlanta Angels, I sat down with Raj Palaniswamy, who’s one of the founders of TIE Atlanta, Paul Lopez, and myself, and we said, “How can we create an ecosystem that can accelerate the process for Angels and for entrepreneurs?” We’ve now deployed in less than two and a half years and changed more than 4.7 million in capital across a variety of different companies, not all tech focus. We’ve got Orpheus Brewing, we’ve got a genetics company, we’ve got a laundry company, we’ve got companies of all sizes, shapes, and forms, but there are some characteristics that we’re looking for which actually also connects with us actually investing equity in the companies in Startup Runway. One, we’re looking for capital ideals. We’re looking for companies that have a little bit of traction and a little bit of a proof of concept and are scaling up. We want to have somebody where there are a lead investor and about half the round funded. Why are those important? Well, you pitch on a Wednesday, you get a thumbs up or down on a Friday, you have followed up questions on a Monday and you have funding in the next week. So, when you’re moving that fast as an organization, the entrepreneur wins and Angels win and it’s really transparent and really exciting to be a part of that ecosystem. All we want to do is transition that towards Startup Runway in partnership with the TIE Access program. We have that same program with the same unity and we brought together the 75 plus TIE Atlanta Angel investors to invest in a program that you can participate in as well to invest a portion of your capital in the top three winning companies that are investable that want to take our capital. We’re really excited about that program and I’ll give it to Amyn to tell us a little bit about the status of where the TIE Access program is, and how we’re going to connect the dots with TIE Atlanta Angels.
Amyn Sadruddin
Yeah, thanks, JP. So, now you take that Angels group, which is again highly active, doing great work putting up capital for startups and within that group, you know, Bruce Keenan, he said it really well, is that every startup needs that one champion or that one capital partner that’s going to really accelerate and catalyze their growth. This is where the Access thesis came about. We wanted to again be able to provide capital and access to mentors, access to the network and ecosystem to these underrepresented female led businesses in Atlanta.
When we started off, we kind of didn’t know what to expect. But you know, when we started the application process, we had 51 applications that we received. 21 of those actually passed on to the second screening and then we have now our finalists, which again composes of 82% female, 62% black founders and 80% Hispanic founders which I think is phenomenal to represent our ecosystem. And now, from this month till next month, July and August, we’re going to be working with them because keeping in mind that organization really wants to provide that mentoring component.
We’re going to be working with them individually with assigned coaches that are going to work with them again on their full business model, taking in questions, giving them strategic advice, and also connecting them to basically the ecosystem once again, to be able to continue that journey and then upgrade everything that they have going on. The competition that Access is hosting on August 29th in partnership with Startup Runway, Launchpad and Zane Ventures, we’re going to actually be doing a pitch where three of the companies will be selected as finalists and they’ll have the opportunity to be able to get $50,000, $30,000 and $20,000 in investment funding. So, again, [I’m] really excited. You know, I think that it’s going to be a phenomenal day where not only are these companies going to be able to get highlighted, but again, we’re hopefully going to give them a megaphone so that they also get that outreach that they need not only because we want to make sure that they get highlighted, but because of our Angel group with Zane Ventures, and all the other capital partners that will attend, they will get that exposure. I think, Lisa, one of the things I always keep in mind from you is that we make sure that capital is the first thing that they need and we want to ensure that we give [them that].
Lisa
At this stage, especially underrepresented founders, a lot of them are highly educated. They’re industry experts, that’s why they’re building a business. The thing that is most difficult is the capital. I mean, when you look at the stats, black families have 1/10th the wealth of white families in this country then suddenly it becomes like, “Yeah, it’s about the money.” I think it’s so exciting that you all are doubling down on your ability to recruit and find and I’m really glad Startup Runway can be one of your channels. Let’s talk a little bit about the Startup Runway finalist experience. As we work together as co-hosts on September 9th for that cohort, we’re going to have 10 -could be 9, could be 11- but 10 amazing finalists who really haven’t pitched on a major stage before and have never gone through a national accelerator. This is the real deal. The kind of earliest stage and TIE Atlanta Angels are coming to invest in these founders. What kind of checks are you anticipating? Tell us a little bit more about what our founders can expect from this new level of partnership.
JP James
We’ve got a process that’s been proven at TIE Atlanta Angels to be effective. Ask the tough questions, really get to the heart of what a company is all about, and to see that there’s a growth opportunity. One thing I want to be clear to all the people who are involved with Startup Runway and have applied to get this investment capital, we take it very seriously. This is real investment dollars. This is a meritocracy, not just because you have diversity, that we want to invest in the company. I think that’s really important because I think it dilutes the whole process. If we just take capital and just give it to as a prize. That’s not the equation. This is real investment equity capital. We are looking for companies that are serious about growing their company.
Lisa
Yeah, Startup Runway’s whole mission is connecting the top founders from underrepresented groups to their first investor. There are a lot of programs that are sort of hand up but this is really more about quality investable startups led by founders who are seeking professional investment. There’s a lot of alignment with that. Startup Runway is not so much primarily an educational program as an investor centered introduction program.
JP James
So, what’s exciting additionally, is that you’ve got now an active large audience of VCs, Angel investors, professional investors, beyond even TIE Atlanta Angels that are going to be looking to invest actual equity into these companies. Always being on both sides of the equation, it can be a little nerve-wracking. But I think that’s a healthy thing because it allows us to give a perspective of how successful Startup Runway has been and what TIE is going to be adding to that equation because more often than not what I see is that a lot of programs out there and nothing negative about it but it disables the entrepreneur from actually getting real investable dollars. And you know–
Lisa
I want to add to that, JP. The Startup Runway program, it’s four years old has run 72 finalists and we’ve had the opportunity to source 72 absolutely unbelievable first-time founders at the pre-seed/first seed level. Those founders, 100% underrepresented groups, have raised $20 million dollars — a significant amount of capital.
What’s really great, I think, is connecting them to a mentor oriented Angel group that can help provide some of that Angel capital that’s even before VC, because I think that is one of the largest gaps in our ecosystem. There are VCs like 1111 and Valor and others that are ready to write that first check, and in fact, we have quite a few VCs now like Zane, focused on underrepresented founders but there are still VCs. We need those Angels to help professionalize the opportunity.
‘m really excited about seeing the kind of investments that TIE Angels will be able to announce September 9th. Is there anything more that you guys can share with us about how those investment opportunity announcements might work? Is it equity? Is it going to be convertible notes? What do TIE Angels like to do?
JP James
So that’s a great question. I do a lot of Angel investing. I am constantly investing. In fact, sometimes I get stressed out because there are too many good deals [but] in a good way. Because when you’re known as a community that actually puts dollars to work, you get a lot of great quality deals and that’s what’s exciting about Startup Runway.
What allows us to sleep at night is that we’re not doing one big bet. So, one thing I’ve always communicated to all of our Angels is you should be doing about 20 deals over the next three to five years. You should be continuously building a portfolio approach to investing. That’s the other thing that’s exciting about this program, which allows us as investors to not just do one deal, but to do three deals simultaneously, diversifying the risk profile across different industries and different entrepreneurs within the community. We typically do one of two things. We normally have a lead investor on a deal. We’re just a follow on investment on that round. You typically have a sophisticated lead investor or VC fund that sets the terms of the initial round. and then from there, what we’re able to do is really focus on what that structure is. Closer eyes, generally speaking, make sure that the I’s are dotted and t’s are crossed but we like to just write checks. They’re typically convertible debt or series price rounds and we expect to see one of these types of structures while we’re looking at these deals.
Lisa
Cool. In Startup Runway, a lot of times these are early enough founders where they’re truly looking for that Angel check. A lot of times there isn’t a lead investor like it there is with the seed series A and seed that you guys work on. Given the dynamics, you know, you’ll see from our founders and the history you’ve seen from Startup Runway, what kind of deals would you expect traditionally to come out of your process as you evaluate finalists in this cohort?
JP James
We are very entrepreneur friendly. Anybody who’s done any type of financing deal, it’s not clear cut. I wish it was just like “Write the check in here. It’s done.” We will do most likely a convertible debt structure. As an organization, we’re not a fund. We want to do as little overhead and legal costs to both the entrepreneur and to the organization. So convertible structures, if there’s not a lead or structured investment notes, it’s going to be a high probability and we’ll look at market comps that are similar to industry for things like what’s the cap on the round and what’s the valuation going to be. We want to be very entrepreneur friendly, but at the same time, we want to work with the entrepreneur to be realistic as to what the terms they are getting and what’s our expectations.
We don’t want entrepreneurs to take deals that they’re not comfortable taking. In a way, it’s like a shark tank, right? You have people who are looking to invest but that doesn’t mean that you have to take the capital and you have to take equity and you have to take the route. We want to give flexibility to the entrepreneur, depending on what structure they’re coming in already at. If they’ve already got a convertible round or they’ve already got an equity structured series A or pre seed structured round, we’ll be willing to fall on to that otherwise we’ll end up helping them structure the deal itself.
Lisa
How much capital do you anticipate TIE Angels is going to be able to commit to companies in the Atlanta area specifically led by underrepresented founders this year?
JP James
So, that’s exciting. This program with Startup Runway in our investment, we’re going to do a minimum of $100,000 with the three tiers that Amyn talked about; $50,000, $30,000 and $20,000.
Then we’d like to have more Angels in the community to add on to that investment within those three companies. As an Angel group, beyond Startup Runway, it is difficult. I’ll just tell you from a personal standpoint, you should never force somebody to invest in a deal that they want to do just because somebody’s underrepresented or overrepresented. An Angel needs to feel empowered, that they’re doing a deal that’s a good deal, first and foremost.
What we are trying to do is create an ecosystem where we see more entrepreneurs that are underrepresented. We just looked at a company literally yesterday called Pyramix, which is a DNA testing company run by a female doctor who has this amazing company that she got up and running. We are trying to create an ecosystem where the opportunity is presented but at the same time, nobody should ever feel forced to invest in a deal. But with Startup Runway, what’s exciting is you’ve got a large cohort of very high-quality companies that have gone through multiple rounds of screening. You’re presented with the best of the best, and all are investable, and now you’ve got a group approach of investing in high-quality companies.
Lisa
I can’t wait to see how it develops! It’s going to be a fun experiment. Everybody’s welcome to watch, too. In terms of reassurance, though, around investing in underrepresented groups, something Valor does a lot of with 70% of our portfolio led by underrepresented founders.
We’re really keeping our eyes on the research around how investors get the best possible return and a piece of research that I always like to bring up to people because it was new this year and it’s one of the most intense studies ever done is by the Kauffman Fellows and MaC Venture Capital, led by Marlon Nichols. It looked at over the last 10 years, all of the founders who’ve returned capital to investors in Crunchbase.
It’s like a group of 10,000 or 20,000 companies over 10 years and what it showed is that diverse founding teams, ethnic diversity are returning 30% more capital to investors. Now I’m talking three-zero, double digits, 30%. More capital than a pair of white male co-founders. Now, of course, in terms of numbers, there are a lot more white male co-founders and their average return capital is 2.4 x– 2.4, multiple on invested capital. But for diverse founding teams, it was 3.2X. That’s pretty significant. If you’re just looking at history, I think investors have an enlarged opportunity to get their capital back at a higher multiple by investing with what we call the inclusion premium.
Now, you know, your mileage may vary and every deal is different and Angel is incredibly high risk and venture is also super high risk. So, there’s plenty of risk at the table as well. But research like that, that’s so longitudinal and so compelling. It really helps, I think, Angels in Atlanta get their arms around the opportunities in front of them through things like TIE Angels.
I’d like to dive a little bit more into the Angel experience for a minute. We’ve talked a lot about founders. It’s hard sometimes for Angels to raise their hand and become an Angel, especially first-time Angels. I know this year we’re going to meet thousands of first-time Angels in Atlanta and a lot of them need to know about your program. What would they expect for fees, rhythm? I mean, if I’m someone in the audience, I’m thinking I’d like to put a few thousand dollars into people I can relate to. I’d like to mentor. I’d like to help. How can they do it through your program, what does it look like?
JP James
A lot of our Angels are spoiled because we almost have no fees. We are a volunteer-led organization and all of us on the committee and anybody is welcome to be part of the committee as long as you’re willing to work your butt off. We give back. We’ve built a structure. We’ve got our accountant from TIE who helps us structure all these deals, those fixed fees for the K-1s and stuff like that per deal. You’re doing a $500 donation to a 501(c)(3), which is TIE, a foundation, which focuses on educational programs, and then your membership per year is $150. So it’s not real, and that’s really just being a TIE member. The barrier to entry to join is not really high. What is so unique and why I think we’ve been so successful, is there is a soft commitment that you’re going to be investing about $10,000 within a 12-month time frame. We have had zero people that haven’t been able to meet that criteria and it might be a little bit different with, you know, post COVID basic deal flow and capital that’s being deployed. The reason why we made that verbal commitment out there is there’s a lot of organizations in Atlanta and abroad, where it becomes a club to hang out. In fact, I think we’ve done the opposite. We probably need to hang out some more with all of our Angels. But no, the reality is, we want entrepreneurs to be excited to come to the Angel program and pitch because we do deals. So we only do one deal a month maximum and there are a couple of months that we don’t. They’re a very limited number of deals we’re looking at, super high-quality deals. There’s no obligation to invest. We suggest at least $10,000 per deal. We’ve lowered it a little bit during the virus just because we know some of the marketplaces has shifted a little bit, so about $7500 per investor in a deal. What we’ve done is we typically have a minimum of $100,000 that we invest per deal. So, those barriers to entry, generally speaking, if you want to be an Angel investor and build a portfolio, it’s fairly low. Relatively speaking, in my opinion, if you’re going to be an active Angel and you just don’t know anything about it but you’ve heard so much about it, we’re very focused on educating and having everybody ask a lot of questions. You have VC fund partners who are also part of the group who have invested outside of their own fund into our Angel group, and then you have people who’ve never invested a single dollar in any private company ever in their entire life. So, with that spectrum, you get a lot of people that are working off of each other and mentoring each other as an educational component of figuring out, “How do I go through this process of Angel investing?” I’ll be honest. The easiest way to learn about Angel investing is by doing some Angel investing. What do I mean? Put some dollars to work. Take a little bit of risk with TIE Atlanta Angels investment into the Startup Runway companies. Now, reduce your risk profile, put a little bit of capital work at our thresholds, or even a lot lower. We’re asking maybe a $3,000 commitment to investing in three different companies. So, right now you’ve got an opportunity, working with Startup Runway and looking at these amazing companies to have a lower barrier of entry, lower than ever, to be able to get access to multiple different companies and that’s what’s really exciting about this program that we’d love for you guys to get invested in.
Lisa
Well, let me make sure that I got that because it is I think the best deal in Angel investing that I’ve heard and I’ve heard from a lot of groups over the years and pitched many of them to in past decades. So, let’s see. You can invest, you should do more but a minimum of $3,000 and get into three deals, which is some shockingly awesome portfolio diversity at a price point that really no one’s touching but TIE Angels. With that, you get involved with a group of fellow peers who are interested in this, too, and that costs them $500 donation to the foundation.
JP James
One time. One time $500 donation.
Lisa
Then you become a member of TIE. But, of course, those are all things you want to do anyway, because you want to have your mentors and your peers and your cohort around you. You get all of this package for less than $5,000 a year?
JP James
Hundred percent. You got it. Yeah.
Lisa
That’s insane. For anyone who’s listening, I’m not just promoting here really, honestly, there are Angel groups that say pay us $5,000 then maybe we’ll show you some deals, and they don’t have the richness of the network and the local investment opportunity or the underrepresented founders, which I think are some of the hottest deals in the country right now in terms of the multiple on invested capital that investors are able to realize, from traditionally overlooked overachievers. So, how would someone sign up? What’s the link?
Amyn Sadruddin
So easy. You just go to atlanta.tie.org. We have a top link where it says just programs, you’ll find TIE Atlanta Angels there. It has all the information. It also highlights some of our portfolio companies, the process, the fees, and you can easily do it. As soon as you do, you get calendar invites to the next meeting, and then we get you introduced, and it’s pretty much a runaway from there.
Lisa
And speaking of the runway, if you’re a founder listening and you’re starting to get excited about the kind of Angels that you might be able to get in front of with Startup Runway, applications are open. They are open all year at startuprunway.co. If you qualify, you know you have some traction, you are an underrepresented founder, you’re the majority founder, you’re leading this company, you have raised less than $150,000. If you meet our criteria, then you can be accepted into our free program and then not only do you have the opportunity to get in front of great active local doer Angels like this, but also we have grant checks for $10,000 underwritten by partners, like our presenting sponsor, Cox Enterprises, and American Family Institute. It’s kind of a whole package deal! I really appreciate you guys explaining why you’ve chosen to be a co-host of startup Runway. Thank you so much for your time today.
Amyn Sadruddin
Thanks, Lisa!
JP James
Thanks, Lisa! I’m really excited for the coming year.
Lisa
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