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John Willmoth doesn't believe Kentucky can be Silicon Valley. But that doesn't mean there isn't opportunity in the Bluegrass State.
In fact, the founder and managing partner of Poplar Ventures has made several investments in early-stage companies scaling from Middle America, such as Louisville-based SkuVault and Switcher Studio, and PERQ out of Indianapolis.
However in order to continue to grow the tech economy in the Midwest, Willmoth told us on the most recent episode of The Cornfield Capitalists podcast there are two things the region is missing.
"If you asked me what's the big difference between the two purely from a venture capital perspective, a there's more capital [in Silicon Valley] and they have a deeper bench in terms of operational talent," he said. "To me, that's what we have to do. I mean, I don't know any way to solve this other than to get more talent here. It's a little bit of a chicken and egg situation."
On the latest episode of The Cornfield Capitalists, Willmoth referenced the success of one of his largest investments ZirMed, which merged with Navicure to form Waystar in 2017. It now employs more than 1,000 people between its offices in Louisville, Atlanta and Salt Lake City.
"Instead of one [ZirMed], we need 20 of those," he continued. "By definition it will create more talent and that talent is going to look around and say, 'Hey, I can go do this, or I can go do that.' And I think at the end of the day, that's the beauty of Silicon Valley is that they have that depth."
