Render Competition winners crowned at inaugural Derby Tech Summit

With everything going on in Louisville the last few weeks leading up to the 150th Kentucky Derby, one of the bigger annual events in the entrepreneurial ecosystem took place a 20-minute walk down Central Avenue from Churchill Downs Racetrack.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, investors from all over the country gathered in Louisville to take part in the inaugural Derby Tech Summit, which doubled as both a conference geared to early-stage founders and as well as the means to unveil the 2024 winners of the fifth-annual Render Competition — in which the each honoree receives $100,000 from Louisville-based Render Capital (see the list below).

On Tuesday, an internal workshop was held at the Downtown Louisville offices of Frost Brown Todd, a large law firm that served as one of the supporting sponsors of the summit. On Wednesday, the proceedings took place at the Angel’s Envy Bourbon Club at the L&N Credit Union Stadium (home of the University of Louisville’s football team).

Up until this year, the event was held in either September or October, when recipients held up giant checks within the confines of Lynn Family Stadium, the home of Louisville City FC and Racing Louisville FC.

To reach the attention of outside capital, though, they would need a larger platform.

Why the Render Competition was moved

“We took a look last year at the competition … and we had outgrown the soccer stadium … and we were like, ‘How do we attract other markets specifically?,’” said Patrick Henshaw, managing director at Render Capital. “All eyes of the world are on Kentucky for one week, so … why not add those additional eyes to say, hey, ‘Let’s not just bet on jockeys [and horses]. Let’s bet on founders that week as well.”

The planning for the event came together in a matter of months, Henshaw said, as he started making phone calls with his counterparts at other venture capital (VC) firms as well as angel investors to set up what would become the summit.

According to a LinkedIn promo post by Henshaw, the 50-plus investors gathered would have close to a $1 billion in total combined assets under management, 80% of whom are based out of the region.

Most of them were looking to invest in the middle of the country in particular, like Adrian Fortino.

Fortino, who lives into the Detroit metro area, is the managing director of the Mercury Fund, which is currently on its fifth fund — its largest at $160 million. As of recent date, about 50% of the fund had been allocated in software-driven companies, most of them in the realm of business-to-business Software-as-a-Service (better known as B2B SaaS).

Note: Fortino’s very first investment 10 years ago was with Henshaw’s company at the time, Strap, a wearable technology company.

Aside from Henshaw, Fortino — who was making his first trip to Louisville — said that he had knew of Louisville-based Forecastr and one its co-founders Steven Plappert, a panelist at the summit.

“That was my first kind of foray into it,” Fortino said. “And that's actually one of the reasons I called Patrick. I was like, ‘Hey, pretty cool company here. What else is happening? I’d love to come down.’”

Out of the current members of the fifth fund, none of the companies were based in Kentucky or Southern Indiana — as of our Tuesday meeting.

“Covid proved that you can build great companies anywhere and everywhere,” Fortino said. “And it also has allowed talent to migrate to places that are amazing to live.”

Here is a list of the 12 winning Render Competition startups (four of which are currently based in Louisville)

I will provide a breakdown of the 12 winners next week.

According to the eligibility guidelines, each applicant had to identify as being a “high-growth startup,” meaning it is looking to aggressively scale up before seeking an exit. The competition rules also state that any company with founders not living in the Louisville metro area must relocate their headquarters or have founding team members based in the area.

Render Capital, which manages $30 million in two collective funds, was founded in 2020 with some financial help — around $400,000 — provided federal U.S. Economic Development Association (EDA) award called Build to Scale (in particular, the Capital Challenge). The program’s operational budget ends at the end of 2024, Henshaw said.

“Now is the time for the city, for the state and hopefully, the Federal EDA to step up again and say, ‘Hey, we value Render Capital. We value the ecosystem development.,’” Henshaw said. “‘We value the over 1,000 applications from 40 some odd countries, and [the] 20 or [so] companies that have relocated to Louisville to continue to do this great work, so we hope it’s a recurring thing.”

Henshaw added that the plan is to go after another EDA award, the Venture Challenge, which maxes out at $2 million, but also must be matched by regional dollars.