New Ventures Expands in North and South Carolina

CONCORD, NC—April 22, 2021— Flywheel’s early-stage investment and accelerator program announced today it is expanding in regions ranging from the North Carolina Core to Upstate South Carolina. New Ventures opened applications this month to four separate application pipelines and areas of focus through June 7, 2021.

The expanded accelerator program offering is coupled with a fourfold expansion of the corollary investment funds. “Our ability to replicate the New Ventures program as we expand our network of innovation centers along the I-85 corridor is based on the success of the program over its first five years,” says Peter Marsh, a cofounder of Flywheel and administrative member of the New Ventures LLCs.

“As we expand geographically, the regions we serve all find that access to inception- and early-stage capital fills a gap in the entrepreneurship ecosystems and helps stimulate formation and attraction of scalable technology companies,” he continues.

Page Castrodale, the Executive Director of the Economic Development Corporation in Cabarrus County where Flywheel just opened it’s third location adds, “We believe that economic development is just as much about organic job creation as it is about recruiting new companies to our community. The expansion of the New Ventures program to our region will stimulate economic development at the earliest stages, and we know the impact of that will be immeasurable.”

Flywheel’s affiliated Foundation administers the accelerators using their Learning Management System to deliver the core curriculum and subject matter experts to deliver insights in the market verticals. The development of the hybrid developmental model was in response to the pandemic.

“The silver lining from 2020 is that it forced us to be innovative with a virtual cohort experience,” says Adrian Smith, Executive Director of the Flywheel Foundation. “That enables us to run multiple accelerators simultaneously, and the participating companies gave us the best ratings out of any year so far.”

The accelerators will run from August 3 through Demo Days on October 28-29. Companies accepted into the program also enjoy a residency at Flywheel innovation centers during the 13-week program and for 3 months following.

“The accelerator program offering is diverse and a reflection of the knowledge assets in the regions served as well as the economic and social impact mission of the Foundation,” says Adrian. Details on the four 2021 accelerators can be found at newventuresnc.com. New Ventures is conducting information session for investors and founders throughout the application window and the dates are listed on the website.

• Health, Wellness, and Nutrition – Focus is on the regional healthcare knowledge assets and partnering with the North Carolina Research Center in Kannapolis and the NC Food Innovation Lab.
• AgTech – Greenworks of Lexington is a 64,000 sq. ft. agricultural lab and research facility with a 20,000 square foot Flywheel coworking innovation center opening in 2022. Flywheel is partnering with SouthXCapital and anchor AgTech tenants on the accelerator.
• B2B Software with focus on SaaS – This accelerator pulls participation from all of Flywheel’s innovation center locations and invites tech companies that intersect with our strongest industries and regional market verticals.
• The Come Up Accelerator – Partnering with HUSTLE Winston-Salem to offer an accelerator for Black and Brown founders. Flywheel Foundation has acted as a fiscal sponsor for HUSTLE since its inception.

This is the sixth year of the New Ventures Challenge and acceleration program which has created a portfolio of 21 companies over five cohorts starting in 2016.

“We measure our success primarily by the valuation growth in the portfolio, customer growth, and the ability of our companies to secure follow-on financing to continue to develop their organizations”, says Patrick Turner, an investor in the first three New Venture funds and a fractional CTO that advises companies in the program.

The 21 portfolio companies have grown from New Ventures’ first five years have grown in value to a combined $43,155,110, have received over $15 million in financing, and have created over 100 new jobs.

“Flywheel and the New Ventures program are critical resources that will fill a gap that will be catalytic for our Upstate entrepreneurial community,” says Anthony Herrera, executive director of Furman University’s Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

New Ventures is an application-based program that invests an average of $50,000 in inception-stage startups. While the program intentionally seeks out in-state startups, it also invests throughout the Southeast and beyond.

The expanded program not only reflects Flywheel’s increased reach geographically, but has also increased diversity and inclusion as a priority, partnering with HUSTLE to run the Come Up Accelerator focused on minority founders.

“With the Flywheel Foundation’s New Ventures curriculum coupled with HUSTLE’s cultural competence and commitment to disrupting biases for Black and Brown entrepreneurs, The Come Up accelerator is well suited to help scale people, community trust, and the bottom line of minority-owned businesses”, says HUSTLE Executive Director Magalie Yacinthe.

About Flywheel New Ventures 2021 LLCs
Flywheel New Ventures 2021, LLC (Sponsor) is a membership based investment organization of local entrepreneurs in the regions served by Flywheel. All members are active investors who select the competition winners and make subsequent investments. The funds raised by this organization are for the purpose of funding the New Ventures Challenge, the Flywheel New Ventures Accelerator, and for investing in selected startups. All investment decisions are made by majority vote and rely heavily on milestone achievement by the selected teams during and after the accelerator session.

About Flywheel and The Flywheel Foundation:
The Flywheel Foundation administers the Challenge on behalf of Flywheel New Ventures 2021 LLC. Flywheel LLC provides workspace for selected challenge teams, runs the accelerator, and organizes the resources and mentors for development of teams’ concepts and commercialization plans.
Flywheel LLC is multi-site coworking innovation space. Headquartered in Winston-Salem, Flywheel designs and operates innovation centers that provides a community workspace concept for startups, consultants and freelancers in the form of membership plans tailored to their needs, network resources, and programming focused on technology skills and business development. Flywheel hosts numerous activities focused on startups including Techstars Startup Weekend, Flywheel.Courses, and Startup Grind.

The Flywheel Foundation is a sister non-profit organization dedicated to eliminating the barriers to entrepreneurship through ecosystem development, education, research, and investment. For companies interested in supporting equity in entrepreneurship, Flywheel Foundation is accepting sponsorships to support entrepreneurs in New Ventures and for its scholarship program for black and brown founders.