Stories of Technology, Innovation, & Entrepreneurship in the Southeast

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February 03, 2025 | Tom Ballard

INVESTOR OUTLOOK 7: Final thoughts

Our panel of investors from East Tennessee offer their insights.

Today’s Question: What other insights do you want to share with our teknovation.biz readers?

  1. Brandon Bruce, Managing Partner, Market Square Ventures: Thank you, Tom and Katelyn, for a fantastic year of coverage of entrepreneurship, technology, and innovation.
  2. Eric Dobson, Managing Partner at Community Equity Partners and Sheltowee Venture Fund II: The Knoxville ecosystem seemed to burgeon despite a bad climate for both raising and investing capital. The good news is the angel investment ecosystem continued to expand with new funds, new opportunities, and a fresh outlook for 2025. The “Techstars Industries of the Future Accelerator” is gone, but it had an important impact. It put Knoxville on the map, albeit briefly, on a national and international scale. The question that must be answered is what to do with the momentum that was created by the activity. The new 121 Tech Hub is a great addition to the local ecosystem. I sincerely hope the three Techstars’ sponsors understand how much the community appreciates their investment and that they continue to support the ecosystem with the same enthusiasm and resources. We have come a long way in the last 16 years (when I joined the Knoxville ecosystem). The entrepreneurial environment has made huge leaps. But there is still much to do, and we need more of our community to engage with our entrepreneurs and to become mentors and investors.
  3. Tony Lettich, Managing Director of The Angel Roundtable: We continue to be enthusiastic about the growth of the start-up ecosystem in the State of Tennessee. Recent start-up ecosystem summaries have been published in Tri-Cities and Nashville, and new investors, accelerators, and related support systems in these cities as well as Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Memphis, as has been highlighted by teknovation.biz, highlight this progress. The start-up ecosystems in the state have strengthened significantly in the last 10 years and continue to increase opportunities for Tennessee companies and others in the region.
  4. Travis Manasco, MD, Principal, Solas BioVentures: No additional input.
  5. Grady Vanderhoofven, Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Three Roots Capital: I have been gaining an increasing appreciation for how much local and regional economic development is going to be affected by energy availability and workforce availability. In East Tennessee and across the state and region, we have a tremendous need to increase the availability of “affordable” energy to power the companies of the future, as well as the growth of our current companies. At the same time, we need to expand the workforce available to fill the jobs of the future, as well as address the workforce needs of companies that are already doing business in our communities. Innovations that support energy availability and workforce availability could have compounding effects in our communities from an economic perspective. When I refer to “energy availability,” I’m thinking about advanced battery technology, nuclear, and efficient transmission and utilization of power, among other things. When I refer to “workforce availability,” I’m thinking about education and training, talent retention, and in-migration, but I’m also thinking about housing availability and access to affordable, quality childcare. Some fundamental issues in our communities will need to be addressed if we are going to continue to drive innovation, create start-up companies, attract, and grow (and retain) businesses, and attract capital to this region of the country. I believe we have a lot of advantages and opportunities in this region, but we need to overcome some challenges that could be inhibitors to (place-based) innovation and regional economic growth over the long term.
  6. Ken Woody, President, Innova Memphis: Smart entrepreneurs always find ways to create value. Investors are constantly looking for well-run companies with unique technology/service that have a large market. The key will always be to do customer discovery, be able to clearly state your value, build a great team, and outperform your forecast. Investors are always looking for companies that fit that model.

With this article, we wrap up another annual “Investor Outlook” series, and we cannot thank Brandon, Eric, Grady, Ken, Tony, and Travis enough for taking the time to share their thoughts with our readers.



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