The Kentucky Entrepreneur Hall of Fame honored three startup founders as "Emerging Entrepreneurs" in its annual induction ceremony this week.
Emerging entrepreneurs included:
- Jeremiah Chapman, co-founder and CEO of Louisville-based FreshFry
- Nick Mattingly, co-founder and CEO of Louisville-based Switcher Studio
- Matt Dawson, founder and CEO of Lexington-based Wild Health and owner of The Kentucky Castle
FreshFry, a food manufacturing technology company, secured $3.75 million last year in an equity fundraising round that included Cincinatti-based Lightship Capital and Open Prairie Rural Opportunities Fund.
Switcher Studio also raised venture capital in 2020. The company, which offers multi-camera live-streaming software, received $2.4 million in new investments last year, for a seed round total of $3.4 million. Louisville-based Thornton Capital led the round.
Both Louisville startups were named Startups to Watch in 2021, and both Chapman and Mattingly have been Forty Under 40 honorees.
Wild Health is a genomics based precision medicine company. This year alone, it secured $57 million in federal and state contracts to test and vaccinate for Covid-19, according the Lexington Herald Leader.
The Kentucky Entrepreneur Hall of Fame inducted several new members as well, including Randall Bufford, founder and chairman of Louisville-based Triology Health Services; Patrick Lancaster III, chairman and co-founder of Louisville-based Lantech; Cal Turner, co-founder and chairman emeritus of Dollar General Corp., and Cal Turner Jr., chairman of Dollar General Corp. In case you didn't know, Dollar General got its start as J. L. Turner and Son Wholesale Notions – Hosiery in Scottsville, Kentucky, in 1939.
For more information on past honorees, check out the Kentucky Entrepreneur Hall of Fame website here.
