Without NEXT Upstate, though, these venture capital companies might not have known about Greenville’s potential at all. If just a tiny percent of that was redirected into the business community, that would be a few billion dollars invested in ideas, jobs and growth that would shape its future.” What’s NEXT Over $60 billion is invested in stocks, bonds, mutual funds and retirement accounts from residents in the Upstate counties.
“This is one of my favorite things about the legislation we operate under that just passed in 2016,” he says, “It’s called Regulation Crowdfunding 95% of the population has been limited to investing in the public markets until now. And Greenville has always been high on our list as a potential location.” “As we’re expanding,” Marsh says, “we’re looking for markets that fit our business model in terms of being an active operator of innovation co-working spaces and actually creating companies to be part of the community. In fact, Greenville has been on Flywheel’s radar for more than two years. “And has a longer track record stimulating entrepreneurship than many of its peer communities around the Southeast. “I think Greenville has built a reputation as a city that’s done quite a good job revitalizing its downtown,” says Peter Marsh, Flywheel Coworking’s co-founder. The company has a partnership with Furman University in the works to build an “innovation district” near the campus, a space to bring entrepreneurship partners and institutions in the Greenville region under one roof and offer capital access for entrepreneurs from inception to early stage and growth stage.Īnd where Cultivation Capital saw an undercapitalized market, Flywheel saw something completely different. And the Southeast was the most logical expansion place for us.”įlywheel has been planning its expansion into Greenville for a while, and it’s not just bringing investment capital. So it really was the realization that if we want to continue to grow, we need to do a better job of forging opportunities in other parts of the country. “And that means not California and not New York and not Massachusetts. “Part of our strategy is to focus on undercapitalized markets,” Holekamp says. It announced an expansion into the Upstate late last year, and co-founder and managing director Cliff Holekamp says the decision was based on Greenville being “an undercapitalized market.” An undercapitalized marketĬultivation Capital was founded in 2012 with around $400 million in venture capital investments. What’s interesting is that these venture capital firms are coming to the Greenville market for different reasons and with different goals. Louis, Missouri, and North Carolina’s Flywheel Coworking have recently come into the local market, while Greenville-based firms like Vicinity Capital and VentureSouth have both seen an increase in their investor pools.
Companies like Cultivation Capital, which is based in St. Greenville’s star might be on the rise as both a tourism destination and a business hub, but it’s still surprising to hear that the Upstate has also become a hot spot for venture capital companies.īut the fact is that over the past two years, venture capital companies have been drawn toward our area, with wealthy investors eager to help promising startups and fledgling entrepreneurs.
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