Two decades ago, Raghu Misra cofounded ShipXpress, a transportation-focused technology company. Five years ago, GE Transportation acquired the business.
It was the biggest venture the lifelong serial entrepreneur had been involved in — but now he’s aiming even bigger: Misra is on a mission to grow the First Coast’s entrepreneurship ecosystem, helping to encourage the next generation of founders.
That vision will take a big step forward later this month with the launch of the EnterCircle Summit, a three-day event being held in conjunction with the Jacksonville Women’s Business Center, the St. Johns County Chamber of Commerce and JaxUSA Partnership.
“We want to act like the catalyst,” Misra said last week.
The event will start on Nov. 17 with a youth-focused day that will include sessions aimed at middle and high school students, followed by a small business day featuring a pitch competition then wrapping up with a women-focused day on Nov. 19, which is Women's Entrepreneurship Day.
The event will be held at the link, the $6.5 million, a 22,500-square-foot center Misra built at Nocatee that opened earlier this year — a facility that he is hoping to turn into a hope of entrepreneurial activity.
The content at EnterCircle will range from inspirational speakers to updates on the current regulatory environment, Misra said, as well as the pitch competition, which will include student groups, women-led startups and other local companies making their case directly to potential investors.
Some of those companies could end up as part of Sapna Labs, the inclubator/accelerator Misra is launching at the link at the end of the summit, with the goal of having an initial cohort of 10 companies.
“I want to impact at least 100 companies in this decade,” Misra said. “I tend to gravitate to things where I can help get involved and help the founders think bigger.”
For the younger entrepreneurs, the goal is to put them on the path toward later success, helping the students understand how to build an idea into a business.
If all goes according to plan, the EnterCircle event this month won’t be the last one Misra runs — but “we’re not running events for the sake of running events,” he said.
In additional to an annual summit, Misra said, the plan to have ongoing microevents starting next year, bringing in speakers to talk about everyone from the future of aerospace in the area to workforce development.
“This needs to be an ongoing thing,” he said.
