Editor's Note: This story first appeared in the Washington Business Journal.
Steve Case, the billionaire chief of venture firm Revolution, has canceled an upcoming tour of American cities due to concerns about the novel coronavirus.
The cancellation came in the form of an Instagram post from Case, which said that Revolution has been closely monitoring the situation and that "given uncertainties about the ability of attendees to participate in the tour, we have made the very difficult decision to postpone our ninth Rise of the Rest Road Trip."
"We are working on rescheduling and hope to share information soon, including next steps for pitch competition applicants," Case wrote.
The latest incarnation of the tour was slated to make stops in April in Wichita, Kansas; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Oklahoma City; St. Louis, Missouri; and northwest Arkansas. At each stop, Case was supposed to host a discussion and events alongside a pitch competition to eventually award a startup at each location a $100,000 investment, totaling $500,000 in investments for the full tour.
The theme of the relatively regular undertaking is that venture capitalists and others should pay attention to innovation outside of traditional tech hubs like Silicon Valley and New York. Case has been beating the drum for several years, and he aims to spur tech development in the cities he visits on the tour.
"What makes the tour so powerful is the opportunity to bring people from communities together — with individuals in the startup world from other cities — and celebrate what makes each city we visit special," Case wrote in the Instagram post. "We want to make sure that when the bus rolls through, we can deliver that desired catalytic impact."
Since the beginning of the Rise of the Rest tour in 2014, Case and Revolution have traveled 11,500 miles and toured 43 cities.
Rise of the Rest has become a growing brand within Revolution, having just closed its second $150 million fund in October, roughly 90 days after it began fundraising at the end of July. Fund investors include Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos, The Carlyle Group LP (NASDAQ: CG) co-founder David Rubenstein, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt, Spanx founder Sara Blakely, fellow Revolution co-founder Ted Leonsis, the Koch family and former eBay and Hewlett-Packard chief Meg Whitman.
