Venture Carolina, a nonprofit dedicated to bridging the funding gap between investors and entrepreneurs, announced the launch of the 2024 Upstate Upstarts List.
The Upstate Upstarts Lists is a new collaborative community effort to raise the profile of the startups and early-stage technology companies developing new technologies and building new companies in the Upstate of South Carolina.
The inaugural 2024 list is being released today. The list opens with over 50 companies from across the Upstate who fit the criteria of an “Upstart.” Those criteria are companies that are based in the seven counties of the Upstate, have a technology-basis and high growth potential, and have at least $150,000 of annual recurring revenue or a minimum of eight employees.
“The Upstate Upstarts list wants to spotlight the exciting early stage companies we are lucky to have in the Upstate,” said Charlie Banks, Executive Director of Venture Carolina, one of the groups curating the list. “We hope the Upstarts can use their list to attract talent, capital, and partners. We hope investors, both inside and outside the region, can use the list to find compelling investment opportunities. And we hope everyone that supports early stage companies finds ideas and ways to collaborate through the list.”
The list is compiled by the team at Venture Carolina, and supported with funding and help from ecosystem partners across the Upstate, including the Appalachian Regional Commission, VentureSouth, NEXT and StartupGVL, The Hill Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Furman University, and others. Its goal is to create a comprehensive, ecosystem-wide survey of the tech companies that will be generating the next era of jobs in the region. The list is sourced from publicly available data and surveys and discussions with companies and ecosystem support organizations across the region.
To learn more about the Upstate Upstarts list, please visit www.upstateupstarts.com. For more information about the list, or to provide ideas on how to make the list a better tool to promote the work of the Upstarts of the Upstate, contact charlie@venturecarolina.org.
About Venture Carolina
Venture Carolina is a South Carolina based non-profit organization that uses comprehensive educational resources to teach entrepreneurs how best to position their companies for early-stage funding, and to guide investors on how to make disciplined angel investment decisions. The result is an environment within the Southeast that successfully bridges the critical funding gap that exists between entrepreneurs and investors. To learn more about Venture Carolina and our partners, please visit www.venturecarolina.org.