Tuesday night the Atlanta Inno team hosted our Startups to Watch in 2020 event. We had a packed house full of local startups, founders, entrepreneurs, investors and community leaders at the sold-out gathering. Thank you to ATDC for being an amazing event host!
During our networking hour, attendees had the chance to interact with our showcase tables, comprised of startups from our list of 20 Startups to Watch in 2020. Our showcase companies included: Layr, Demand Driven Technologies, Flourish, SimpleShowing, SingleOps, nView, Fanaticus and Sideqik.
The night was centered around a panel discussion moderated by Madison Hogan, founding Associate Editor of Atlanta Inno. The panel featured: Rachel McCrickard, founder and CEO of Motivo, Allie Young, founder and CEO of Axis Replay, and Jeremy Haile, co-founder and CEO of The Sideqik.
We discussed the biggest successes and challenges for each of our panel companies in 2019, the state of funding in the ecosystem and 2020 goals and outlooks. Our top takeaways are:
- Our founders' biggest goals for for 2020 are centered on growth --- whether that's scaling, raising funds or growing the team with the right people.
- The biggest challenges our panelists faced in 2019 are common hurdles for most startups: managing correctly with the right leadership in place, enforcing expectations, knowing how to sell your company to the right audience and finding the right investors for your business.
- Raising capital is subjective for each company. Atlanta has a diverse group of investors but they are typically looking for companies who are further along than seed stage. Finding investors who know your space and line of work well. More opportunities need to be made available for early-stage companies.
- The biggest hopes for 2020 are: big exits, increased funding opportunities for the next generation of startups, more community events (like this one) and building synergy between industries.
A big thank you to everyone who attended, participated and helped make last night successful! We’ve selected some of the best photos from last night’s event below!
