Venture In The South

E133: Lonestar Data Holdings (LDH) is DropBox on the Moon, for the ultimate in extraterrestrial data security. By initially placing data storage on Cis Lunar satellites LDH has achieved the ultimate in data security, backup and sovereignty in a way not previously possible. The follow-on is lunar based data storage physically on the Moon's surface in 2026. Founder and CEO Chris Stott explains LDH's data solution to the data security problem, discusses their business model and how LDH  competes with hyperscalers to create a high margin business. (recorded 8/22/24)

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E132: Donor Advised Funds (DAFs) are not new, but using them for Venture Philanthropy is an innovative way to pursue impact investing.

Abundance Capital extends the ability of new and seasoned philanthropists to unlock community potential, generate inclusive prosperity, and create sustainable local economies across the South.

Recommending investments from specialized donor-advised funds, fundholders provide much-needed, risk-tolerant, flexible financing in the form of loans, equity, and grants to people and projects that solve problems and create opportunities.

Paul interviews Margaret Gifford, Co-Founder of Abundance Capital about their approach to Venture Philanthropy and how it works for investors. (recorded 8/14/24)

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We invite your feedback and suggestions at www.ventureinthesouth.com or email [email protected].

E131: Space may be the final frontier but we'll never move at the speed of light unless we first communicate at the speed of light. That's what x-lumin does, accelerate the technological capabilities of every industry through optical wireless communications (LASER) from ground to air & space and terrestrial point to point. x-lumin's innovation is a proprietary software platform that mitigates laser turbulence through free space, utilizes AI driven beam correction, provides industry leading cyber security, offers the fastest and highest capacity data transmission and applies sophisticated device management all while maintaining eye-safe laser characteristics. The end result is a 100 Gbps data transmission from space and 200 Gbps fully duplexed point to point terrestrial transmission that is field upgradeable to 4 Terabytes per second or more. Zev Suissa, CGO of x-lumin, explains their business model, some of their revenue metrics, their fundraising history and potential for exit. (recorded 8/9/24)

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E130: Startup Incubators are everywhere but none quite like the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) at Georgia Tech. E85 reviewed ATDC in detail and today ATDC director John Avery updates listeners on what's happening now at ATDC. They offer three active tracts: 1) ATDC Educate, a foundational curriculum and mentorship for early entrepreneurs. 2) ATDC Accelerate, for early-stage companies that have at least one full-time and one part-time employee, have developed a minimal viable product (MVP), and have begun refining product-market fit. 3) ATDC Signature, offers a targeted, growth-centric program for scaling tech and life sciences startups, bridging them with essential coaching, capital, and exclusive access to Georgia Tech vast resources. Currently sporting ~115 startups enrolled in the Accelerate Program and ~40 in the Signature program, ATDC is at the top of the incubator leader board in the South by scale and breadth, comparable to Y Combinator and TechStars. Their funding record to date in 2024 includes 52 enrolled companies that have raised $150M with a median raise of ~$2M and a median post-money valuation of ~$16M. Over their 40+ year history, 48% of the ATDC portfolio have had a successful exit. (recorded 8/2/24)

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E129: Urban SDK is solving the Traffic and Safety Problems of Cities of all sizes using big data.

Their Smart City SaaS solution provides traffic engineers with vehicle data from multiple sources to monitor local roads and analyze traffic patterns related to speeding, safety, and congestion at a very low cost. They provide a system of record for all traffic data, as well as an end-to-end platform to run traffic ops and planning. Their traffic analytics platform gives cities the ability to: identify the most significant issues to get the most out of their budgets, supplement data collection with connected vehicles and satellite imagery, quickly create roadway analysis and share insights while integrating systems, files, and teams in the cloud.

Paul interviews Justin Dennis, Co-founder and COO of Urban SDK about their story and their innovative solution to municipal traffic. (recorded 7/25/24)

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We invite your feedback and suggestions at www.ventureinthesouth.com or email [email protected].

E128: The story of Ozy Media is one of greed, betrayal, grift and astonishing hubris. But not the first nor the last such occurrence.

While not on the scale of Theranos or FTX, it was not for lack of trying. David details the 10 year saga of Ozy Media's rise and spectacular fall, culminating with criminal convictions on federal charges of fraud, conspiracy and identity theft. Ozy raised a total of $83M over 5 investment rounds and 2 venture debt rounds. At it valuation peak, Ozy was valued at about $160M.

David provides 4 takeaways that summarize the issues and how they might have been avoided or confronted at a much earlier point in the timeline.

Listeners may take solace in a Wall Street Journal article published on July 19, 2024 (The Man in Silicon Valley Who’s Completely Obsessed With Failure) about startup failures memorialized. It’s a disturbingly long list yet quite informative. It reminds us that individual investors and big VCs alike are all vulnerable to the ‘Fake It ‘Till You Make It’ ethos and as the stewards of capital, we must do better. (recorded 7.19.24)

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We invite your feedback and suggestions at www.ventureinthesouth.com or email [email protected].

E127: South Carolina is surging with founders and startups seeking capital investment.

In today's episode, Paul Clark and Dawson Racek of VentureSouth and Venture Carolina recap the Upstate Upstarts List of South Carolina, and discuss how they plan to use list to select the 15-20 most promising Startups for their Upstate Upstarts Fund. They review the rationale for the UU List, the investment thesis for the UU Fund and how it will work.

In the second half of the show, Paul then interviews Alan Blakeborough, Founder of Tax Titans, about his tax services marketplace that connects taxpayers, gig workers, and small business owners directly to the tax professionals and tax services they need. Tax Titans is a company from the Upstate Upstarts list, and the kind of company the new fund could support. (recorded 6/20/24 & 7/10/24)

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We invite your feedback and suggestions at www.ventureinthesouth.com or email [email protected].

E126: HealthyCell is a DTC supplements business with the competitive advantage of a proprietary oral gel delivery system that makes their suppliments better absorbed, easier to swallow and taste great. HC was first interviewed for E93 when they were launching their growth plan and reaching for profitability. Today David interviews Doug Giampappa, Founder and CEO of HealthyCell to update listeners on their growth progress, profitability and funding plans. He reviews their results through May 2024, their plan to move into retail and his funding expectations. (recorded 7/3/24)

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We invite your feedback and suggestions at www.ventureinthesouth.com or email [email protected].

E125: Kiyatec is a Cancer Diagnostics Startup focused on solving the problem of selecting the best chemotherapy for each individual cancer patient's specific cancer. The standard of care today is essentially trial and error following a menu of consensus empiric chemotherapy choices, then trying the most likely effective drug first and measuring response. Kiyatec's solution, 3-D Predict, uses a proprietary 3-D cell culture technique that grows cancer cells in the lab, directly from a tumor biopsy and tests those cells against all the consensus empiric chemotherapy choices. This test identifies the drug that is most effective at killing that specific tumor with a 98% positive predictive value within 7 days. Compared to cancer cell genomics, which identifies genetic markers associated with response to treatment, 3-D Predict actually measures the response. This is a game changer in Oncology because it eliminates educated guessing, avoiding the common scenario of taking a drug that doesn't work and experiencing side effects for no benefit. Kiyatec has published multiple peer reviewed studies proving the accuracy of 3-D Predict in Glioblastoma and Ovarian cancer while preparing documentation to support accuracy for the really big cancers like Lung, Breast and Prostate. David interviews CEO Eric Perreault for the Kiyatec story and the 4 key milestones he aims to  achieve in 2024 to support a $15-20M growth equity raise in 2025. (recorded 6/28/24)

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We invite your feedback and suggestions at www.ventureinthesouth.com or email [email protected].

E124: 757 Angels are based in Hampton Rhodes, VA and host a truely robust startup ecosystem. They offer a progressive support program for founders with a Startup Studio supporting pre-seed startups, progressing to the 757 Accelerate Program supporting growing startups and the 757 Angels who have raised over $100M of Angel Investment over the last 10 years. Paul interviews the leadership team of Paul Nolde and Charles Corprew of 757 Angels to explore their ecosystem and it's intersection with Founders and Startup Investors across the southern US. (recorded 5/6/24)

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We invite your feedback and suggestions at www.ventureinthesouth.com or email [email protected].