A $15 Million Fund For Local Entrepreneurs
In an effort to better support entrepreneurs in Louisville and Southern Indiana, Access Ventures is excited to announce Render Capital, a new $15 million regional fund focused on providing early stage risk capital for local entrepreneurs.
We envision a robust and thriving regional economy where entrepreneurs see Louisville and Southern Indiana as a place they can find the appropriate capital necessary to start and grow businesses. In order to do that we need to address some of the critical issues that oppose the growth of regional economies. 55% of Americans view access to money as the most difficult part of starting a business, 49% of millennials plan to start a business in the next three years, and 83% of entrepreneurs end up starting and growing their businesses without traditional venture capital or traditional bank financing. These stats tell us that it’s not a lack of innovation or motivation that is keeping our region from reaching its full entrepreneurial potential, but we do lack the proper vehicles to deploy capital in a way that sets up entrepreneurs in our region for growth and success.
Entrepreneurship is foundational to economic mobility in the US and greater availability of capital means that more entrepreneurs are able to start and grow their businesses — ultimately leading to a more vibrant regional economy and improved independence through entrepreneurial success.
Bryce Butler, Managing Partner, Access Ventures
That’s one of the reasons we are excited to launch Render Capital, a regionally specific fund of Access Ventures. This mission is critical for our region because new businesses stimulate our economy and mobilize our community by creating jobs, bringing talent, and attracting investment and at Access Ventures, we believe that access to capital is an essential part of economic growth.
Launching today is the Render Competition, an annual competition that will award 8 startups an investment of $100,000 each to help them grow and scale. The competition will focus on innovation, scalability, and the potential for a significant regional impact. We want to add to what works well in Greater Louisville and spark progress within our sectors of focus. For this reason, we especially encourage applications from businesses working to solve problems and innovate within the following key verticals: advanced manufacturing, health innovation, food and beverage, logistics, and technology including artificial intelligence, data science, and internet of things.
This is a community effort and already we have some generous corporate sponsorships - Samtec, UPS, Microsoft, and GLI; as well as in-kind sponsorship from The Park, Story Louisville, and The Root.
Render Capital will be offering equity, debt and revenue-based financing of up to $250,000 for local entrepreneurs looking to scale their startups.
Also launching today as a part of Render Capital are our early stage investments. Render Capital will be offering equity, debt and revenue-based financing of up to $250,000 for local entrepreneurs looking to scale their startups.
We are also rolling our character-based Growth Loan, which has supplied more than $800,000 over the past 3 years to 33 businesses, into this new regional strategy and will be announcing some exciting program additions over the coming weeks and months.
You can learn more about each of these Render Capital programs at our Meet & Greet event on February 11th, 2020 at 8:30am at Story Louisville or by visiting www.render.capital.
About Access Ventures: Access Ventures, a Louisville, KY based private operating foundation, is working to initiate systemic change in communities that results in a more inclusive and creative economy: an economy that functions for all people, and in which everyone is valued. Recognized as a leading voice in values and mission aligned investing, Access Ventures offers a one-pocket approach that is working to change the way the world invests. Learn more at http://accessventures.org.
