Local accelerator partners with national nonprofit

West Coast-to-memphis footprint

Leaders of Memphisbased Start Co. — a nonprofit accelerator for high- growth potential technology entrepreneurs — on Tuesday announced a partnership with JumpStart that will expand the footprints of both organizations.

JumpStart, with headquarters in Cleveland, Ohio, is affiliated with 16 entrepreneurship organi- zations across the country. The Memphis affiliation marks the Northeast Ohio group’s entry into Tennessee and is its only collaboration in the state.

The partnership will involve sharing best practices of both organizations, said JumpStart president Mike Mozenter. And it will include training for Start Co. staffers by JumpStart executives in areas such as fundraising, marketing and recruitment to help Start Co. broaden its reach.

“Our goal is to be the leading venture development organization in the region,” said Andre Fowlkes, co-president of Start Co. “To get there we need to get more entrepreneurs through the door, raise money better and tell our story better. This is a game changer.”

Part of the plan involves boosting funds through public/private efforts with governmental organizations, corporations and philanthropic groups to offer technical assistance for entrepreneurs as well as support in the pre- and post-accelerator stages. The group hopes to raise $50 million over the next five years and use that money as an investment fund to help promising tech startups reach maturity and scalability.

The goals, while aggres--

sive, are also obtainable, Mozenter said, and will help provide for future programs that will be tailored to fit the region. The process will also feature collaborations with other local entrepreneurial organizations to eliminate duplication of programming and to increase participation by women and minorities.

“Entrepreneurship here is different from entrepreneurship in Northeast Ohio or the West Coast because of different resources, so what works in one area may not succeed somewhere else. We help regions focus on being relevant to a broader array of resource providers and make programs,” Mozenter said. “We’re excited about working with Memphis because there’s an emerging entrepreneurial ecosystem here that’s doing things we’ve never seen before. The quality of some of the programming you’re already providing is extraordinary.”

In addition to the JumpStart partnership, Start Co. leaders announced a West Coast expansion with the opening of an office in San Francisco.

The move is an effort to redirect talent and resources from tech-rich Silicon Valley to the Bluff City. Serial entrepreneur Mara Lewis, who spends one week each month in Memphis as entrepreneur- in-residence at the Upstart Memphis boot camp program housed at Start Co., will operate the West Coast office.

“We want to grow the entrepreneurial reputation of Memphis in other parts of the country and to do that it makes sense to have a presence in Silicon Valley,” said Eric Mathews, co-president of Start Co. “We want to recruit top talent for our entrepreneurial ecosystem and attract resources for our startups.”