Southeast Shoutouts | News from Georgia and Florida
Here's a roundup of business and entrepreneurship news from around the Southeast region.
From Atlanta, GA:
Effective last week, all core North American-focused venture capital operations of BIP Capital will now operate under the BIP Ventures brand. Led by BIP Capital Founder and Managing Partner Mark Buffington, BIP Ventures will service and support all venture products previously launched under three brands – BIP Opportunities, BIP Capital, and Panoramic Ventures.
The organization also announced that Paul Judge has accepted the position to lead the recently announced Open Opportunity Fund, which is dedicated to investing in diverse founders. As such, he will leave his Panoramic Ventures role.
From Orlando, FL:
What’s the value of a celebrity investor? Probably only time will tell, but Orlando-based geospatial data company Nuview has landed a well-known one. Actor and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio has joined the consortium of investors to help the company build the world’s first commercial LiDAR, light detection and ranging, satellite constellation. NUVIEW’s goal is to map the Earth’s entire land surface in real 3D for the first time and then repeat it annually. MaC Venture Capital led the raise, along with Broom Ventures, Cortado, Florida Funders, Industrious, Liquid2, and Veto Capital.
From Tampa, FL:
James “Jay” Nault, a two-time graduate of the University of South Florida (USF), knows the power of innovation. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, he launched the Hometown Restaurant Gift Certificate Challenge, creating a lifeline for struggling small businesses. Now, he has made a transformational investment in the next generation of business builders with a $10 million gift to endow the now-named Nault Center for Entrepreneurship.
Founded in 2002, the Center’s master’s degree program is ranked by The Princeton Review as #1 in the South and #5 nationally for all public universities. More than 1,000 center alumni have opened approximately 300 businesses in just the past decade. Nault’s gift will expand pitch competitions for the Center as well as launch innovative new educational opportunities. Those include creating a new living-learning community, expanding the Center’s mentoring program, building more “shark tank”-like competitions, and supporting potential new degree options for executives.
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