Eighty percent of all venture capital is spent on three coastal states. Unfortunately, this statistic often leads founders to think they have to move to places like California or New York to build a high growth company. 

There are many reasons why fund managers and venture capitalists have concentrated in certain regions, luckily new fund managers are emerging in the middle of the country to close the funding gap and help support early stage entrepreneurs. 

Today we talked to one of those fund managers. Michael Basch is the Managing Partner at Atento Capital, a new Venture Capital Fund in Tulsa, Oklahoma backed by the George Kaiser Family. Prior to moving to Tulsa from NY, Michael founded and invested in startups, ran for Mayor of NYC and even helped in the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016. 

Join us as we talk to him about what led him to move from NY to Oklahoma, his views on today’s environment and vision for growing the innovation economy in Tulsa.