The Highlights: Top VCs and capital resources
If you want to know what's going on in Nashville's startup scene, check here for a bi-weekly report about founders, and what they are working on.
This newsletter is powered by a collection of 700+ founders, funders and experts including:
🚀 25M Health 🚀 NS804 🚀 2520 Consulting 🚀 Twin Sun Solutions 🚀 Document Doctors 🚀 Calendaristic 🚀 Stoplyte 🚀 Knowing CX 🚀 Infinite Wonder 🚀 Campfire
Hey y’all! My name is Kelley Griggs, and I’m the founder and host of StartupNash (my company Britepeer’s premier community). People often ask “So, who are the startups I should be talking to?” and “What’s going on in Nashville’s startup community?” If folks are asking me these questions, they might be asking you too. This newsletter is a way to share founder news, member updates, events, asks and resources.
New on StartupNash:
📆 You’re invited to our Office Hours. Think of this hour opportunity as a sounding-board designed to help you think through your priorities and get out of your own head. I'll be at every Open Office Hours, with our new In-House Talent Strategist, Wendy Taylor (Taking Charge).
We also have members-only office hours focused on action items in your growth strategy. Get help with your early growth strategy and your "Go-to-network" strategy. You can use this time to go over marketing materials, add a resource to the StartupNash member landing page or to add a service that StartupNash community members can see.
StartupNash has an updated site and new services. Check it out. We have a new section called Build your Team in partnership with our In-House Talent Strategist, Wendy Taylor of Taking Charge. Here, small startups can make a plan, build a team, and get coaching for a team.
News items:
Wake up babe, the SE Capital Landscape Report just dropped. Embarc Collective and Build in SE released the 2024 SE Capital Landscape Report. Why is this important? It includes a comprehensive list of capital resources across the Southeast. It’s free. Every founder should know about this resource.
EVA, an entertainment booking platform for events, raised 2MM in their most recent round.
Daily Crunch raised 4MM to expand their sprouted nut business
The EC is restructuring programs and adding a new program called TakeOff to make offerings more flexible for founders.
Spinach.ai launched on Product Hunt yesterday and made it into the Top 10 products of the day.
GoodShip was listed as one of the 37 fastest growing startups in the US by hiring rate.
StartupNash Member Updates:
🚀 Infinite Wonder LLC I'm working on networking with other people's networks. I learned that there is a game publishing network based out of Wisconsin. (They are trying to build an idea around games made by small indie groups and that talent can be found outside of the big tech bubbles.)While I'm doing a new game jam next month (it starts this Sunday) trying to spend time in the community that is running this game jam. I did learn about this company that helps people launch kickerstarters successfully. I plan to meet with them and see what advice and services they offer to help with that as well.
Want to connect with Shawn Garrison about his business? Meet him here.
🚀 NS804 PaddleBox, a unmanned paddle board rental kiosk we built for clients just wrapped up their pilot and have been invited to an RFP for the State of Virginia Parks system to roll out next year to all 80 state parks…pretty cool for them. We also recently helped one a new client takeover their app build, clean up the code and implement proper event tracking, analytics and retention campaigns. We have increased their user retention by 35% in the first two weeks.
Want to connect with Nick Jones about his business? Meet him here.
Want to add your business update? Become a paid member of StartupNash and we’ll include your updates in our emails.
👋 Have you met these founders yet?
Nicole Smith: Founder of SwingPro
Corey R. Cox : Founder of XQAssess
Nate Brown: Cofounder of CX Accelerator
Mark Norton: Founder of Adele Health
Recent Launches
🚀 XQAssess: helps professional investors spot and fund superior founders.
🚀 Inglewood Instruments launched a new collection of instruments: River Guitar and River Dulcimer.
🚀 Spinach.ai: Get an extra teammate who is always on time, takes accurate meeting notes, and updates action items in your project management tool or CRM.
Workshops:
📆 Build Your Brand Blueprint: Jamie Cox, founder and owner of Strange Salt, has generously volunteered to chat with us founders about building a brand. Jamie specifically works with startup founders as part of her business. She will help us with:
Branding concepts
Early positioning and messaging
Avoiding branding mistakes that can hurt our businesses
Creating a roadmap that helps us attract the right audience
Here's the details and the registration: https://startupnash.com/webinar-build-your-blueprint
Community Asks:
🌞 A member is seeking a cofounder in a new B2C music tech app.
🌞 Feedback from parents who would love to have a different take on the internet for kids.
🌞 An invite to join a group of business owners that meets every other week in East Nashville.
🌞 Systems founders need in early/growth stages.
If anyone is interested in learning about angel investing, collaborating on diligence with awesome people, and writing checks (no minimum check size!) Contact Peter Swan to learn more about Gust’s Angel Network, (which includes participation and startups from Nashville).
🌟 Have an ask or an offer? Join StartupNash. We are a group of founders and funders in Nashville. Our community focuses on using peer mentorship and the power of our collective network to help each other grow our businesses.
Those are this week’s highlights. If you’d like to share ongoing updates with founders and funders on this email list, sign up to be a member of StartupNash. StartupNash uses Britepeer, a tool my team built, to connect members in our community by skill. We believe sharing knowledge through peer mentorship spreads wealth in our community. I hope you’ll consider joining us.