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StartVirginia: Heard Around Virginia August 2024

Blacksburg is moving forward with the renovation of a former dry-cleaning business into a retail business incubator. Slated to open by the end of 2025, the Blacksburg Retail Incubator is planned at 414 N. Main St., a 5,000-square-foot building owned by the town. After the building has been improved, Downtown Blacksburg Inc. will locate there and operate an incubator to house entrepreneurs seeking to create or expand a business providing products to the community. Officials hope to attract merchants that serve a new or underserved market. There will be room for events and receptions as well. (The Roanoke Times)

Arlington County’s CareJourney, a health care data and analytics company co-founded in 2014 by former U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra, has been acquired by Arcadia, a Boston health care data platform, according to a June 27 announcement. A spokesperson for Arcadia declined to provide financial terms of the deal. The merged company will have 400 employees. CareJourney derives analytics from Medicare, Medicaid, Medicare Advantage and commercial claims data across more than 300 million beneficiaries and over 2 million providers nationwide. Its clients include payers, providers and employers. Chopra, who served as the nation’s first chief technology officer under President Barack Obama, is now Arcadia’s chief strategy officer. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

CAV Angels, an investment syndicate composed of University of Virginia alumni, students and friends, recently closed three funding deals to push its lifetime investments close to $26 million. The recent investments include MITO Material Solutions, an Indianapolis company that makes resin additives for manufacturing, New York City’s Ask Alex, which offers AI-powered data and marketing software that automates workflows for brick-and-mortar operators; and Richmond augmented reality company ARtGlass. Exact terms of the funding deals were not disclosed. All were group deals. (Richmond Inno)

Shenandoah Community Capital Fund is hosting its third annual Shenandoah Valley Entrepreneurship Summit Sept. 9-10 at James Madison University in Harrisonburg. With the theme “Learning by Doing,” the summit will offer several hands-on workshops as well as networking and relationship-building opportunities. Session topics will be led by expert entrepreneurs and business owners and will center around subjects such as marketing, finance, technology and business management. Tickets are $155 (or $80 for students) and include meals and admission to SCCF’s first Demo Day on night one. More information can be found at sccfva.org. (News release)

Torev Motors, a Crystal City startup vying to improve the motors that power electric vehicles, crossed the $1 million funding threshold in June. The 2-year-old company recently closed a $650,000 pre-seed funding round led by BetterWay Ventures, a Charleston, South Carolina-based venture capital firm that funds green tech startups. Houston investment firm EcoSphere Ventures, Los Angeles-based Climate Avengers and Alexandria investment firm Intbox Ventures also participated. Torev is in talks with several automakers about establishing pilot programs that its founders hope will lead to its hardware being tested out in passenger cars and, eventually, construction and military equipment. (DC Inno)

McLean fintech Verituity has raised $18.8 million to expand the customer base for its software, which helps verify financial transactions such as refunds and insurance claims. Sandbox Industries of Chicago and San Mateo, California-based Forgepoint Capital led the round. Washington, D.C.’s Ardent Venture Partners and Santa Monica’s MTech Capital also took part. Forgepoint and Ardent led Verituity’s $10 million Series A round in 2021. Started in 2020, Verituity’s business has skyrocketed from processing roughly $13 million in payouts in 2022 to over $2.6 billion in the past year, according to investor Forgepoint. Customers include financial giants such as BNY Mellon, Citizens Bank and Assurant. MasterCard inked a partnership with Verituity earlier this year. (DC Inno)

Fairfax tech firm Antithesis exits stealth mode with $47M

It’s appropriate that Vienna software startup Antithesis is housed in the former headquarters of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus’ parent company. After all, Antithesis emerged from stealth mode in February to announce it had raised a Jumbo-sized $47 million in seed funding.

Founded in 2018, Antithesis is an AI-powered cloud platform for autonomously debugging and continuously testing reliability of software. It was developed by a team who previously worked for FoundationDB, a Vienna-based tech startup specializing in databases that was acquired by Apple in 2015.

The five-year seed round was led by Amplify Partners, Tamarack Global and First In Ventures. Angel investors included New York tech firm Yext’s founder, Howard Lerman, and CEO, Michael Walrath.

Antithesis co-founder Will Wilson says the company’s focus is to identify serious bugs and vulnerabilities within software that often evade human detection. “We’re finding the kinds of problems that are very hard for human beings to discover or reproduce and the ones that maybe we didn’t think to go looking for.”

In the highly competitive world of tech startups, it’s not unusual for companies to operate silently for a while before publicly unveiling a new technology or product, and Antithesis was no exception to this strategy.

“From the ground up, we had to build some really new things and some technology that was very hard, and we wanted to be able to focus on that without a lot of distraction and without giving any potential competitors a heads-up about what we were doing,” Wilson says. “And we were very lucky that we were able to raise a lot of money … and hire lots of great people and get lots of great early customers while still being stealth.”

Jonathan Perl, a partner at Colorado VC firm Boulder Ventures, invested when the startup began seeking capital in 2019. “These guys were doing something ambitious in the quality testing part of software development,” says Perl, “and we thought that was a big deal.”

Antithesis has found advantages in the NoVa region’s quality of life, stability, and highly skilled labor pool from government contracting.

“There’s a lot of really great talent in Northern Virginia, especially among engineers,” Wilson says. “They really know their stuff when it comes to computers … but unlike in San Francisco, we’re able to keep them for the long haul.” 

Editor Richard Foster contributed to this story.

Briggman leaving post as CEO of Activation Capital

Chandra Briggman is leaving her position as president and CEO of Activation Capital, the Richmond tech incubator announced Monday. Her last day is Friday.

Briggman joined Activation Capital, an accelerator arm of the Virginia Biotechnology Research Partnership Authority, in May 2020; the organization includes a biotech park, startup development and cluster accelerator for pharmaceutical research and manufacturing. During her time at Activation Capital, Briggman played significant roles in raising $31 million to build an innovation center in the Virginia Bio+Tech Park, launching the Alliance for Building Better Medicine, and winning a $53 million federal grant in the Build Back Better Regional Challenge, among other achievements.

According to Monday’s announcement, Briggman plans to “pursue new opportunities to build innovation ecosystems and drive economic development,” but her specific plans were not disclosed.

“At heart, I’m a builder, and what I do well, I have done,” Briggman said in a statement. “The opportunity to contribute to Activation Capital and the Central Virginia community has been a highlight of my career. It gave me an opportunity to sharpen the organization’s strategy, secure the growth capital necessary to flourish and align every action with a mission-centric outcome. Together, we built a team of experts who are focused on execution and excellence during the next phase of Activation Capital. My goal was always to create the team, prove our model and then transition to the next opportunity to build.”

The organization plans to launch a search for Briggman’s replacement, but in the meantime, Kipton Currier, vice president of operations, will lead day-to-day operations, and Activation Capital’s executive team will oversee key initiatives, a spokesperson said.

“Chandra Briggman’s pivotal time at Activation Capital has been defined by impact, and her impressive body of work has energized our region,” said Virginia Commonwealth University President Michael Rao, also chairman of the Virginia Biotechnology Research Partnership Authority Board. “In 2020, Chandra was recruited from Boston/Cambridge, Massachusetts, to grow the economic impact of Activation Capital. In four years, two of which were at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, she helped reenergize the organization with a new vision and strategy. Chandra executed a bold roadmap that has since grown our regional innovation economy and strengthened Activation Capital’s sustainability model for the future.”

VIPC partners with VC funds to invest $100 million in 100 startups

The Virginia Innovation Partnership Corp. is partnering with seven venture capital fund managers to invest $100 million in 100 Virginia-based startups.

Through the partnership, announced May 20 by Gov. Glenn Youngkin and named Virginia Invests, VIPC will commit $40 million to the seven funds using previously awarded funding from the U.S. Treasury Department’s State Small Business Credit Initiative. In December 2022, Youngkin’s office announced that Virginia had been approved for up to $230 million from the SSBCI program, with about $173 million of that going to VIPC.

“The lifeline of a high-growth entrepreneurial ecosystem is the ability to tap into capital,” Youngkin said, “and that’s exactly what Virginia Invests is all about. How do we accelerate growth? How do we amplify good ideas? How do we unleash opportunity by bringing together people who want to invest in all of this and people who need the money to make it go?”

The funding firms have committed an additional $60 million, and they will select the 100 high-growth startups to invest in during the next three to five years. By contract, firms not headquartered in Virginia will have to provide 1.5 times the funding they receive, while firms headquartered in the state will make a 1:1 match, Youngkin told reporters.

“One of, I think, the really important steps was to recognize that picking companies is not something that we should do,” he said. “We should invest in funds that are picking companies, and that also allows us to have the ability, if companies are doing well and more capital is being put to work well, then potentially, we could invest some more. But the resources and the expertise that are represented by these seven funds in particular deep sectors is unique.”

The seven fund managers focus on founders who are typically underserved. They are Washington, D.C.-based 100KM Ventures; New York-based AIN Ventures; Houston-based The Artemis Fund; Portland, Oregon-based The BFM Fund; Chapel Hill, North Carolina-based Idea Fund Partners; Atlanta-based Valor Ventures; and Tysons-based Veteran Ventures Capital, which recently moved its headquarters from Tennessee to Virginia.

“This is the first round of [funding] commitments. There’ll be more,” Youngkin said.

The nonprofit operations arm of the Virginia Innovation Partnership Authority, VIPC provides strategic commercialization and funding support to Virginia-based tech startups.  

StartVirginia: Heard Around Virginia July 2024

Auterion, a software maker for computing platforms that support drones and autonomous robotics systems, has relocated its headquarters to Arlington County from Moorpark, California, as it seeks to be closer to its defense-related customers. The company already had some of its 112 employees based in the Washington, D.C., metro area for several years, but Auterion’s new HQ at 3100 Clarendon Blvd. now serves as its global base of operations. It also maintains research and development offices in Munich, Germany, and Zürich, Switzerland. (DC Inno)

BetterWorld, a Charlottesville company that offers tools to help organizations raise funds, is bringing in some funding of its own. The company has raised $7.35 million in equity from five investors, according to a May 21 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Betterworld’s platform includes tools to set up auctions, raffles, crowdfunding, giveaways, ticketing and more charitable giving options. The company counts more than 95,000 users, including Boys & Girls Clubs, Make-A-Wish America, the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives, and USA Cycling. (Richmond Inno)

Alexandria-based tech startup HyperSpectral raised $8.5 million in Series A funding, the company announced June 5. The round was co-led by New York-based RRE Ventures and Kibo Ventures, based in Spain, with participating venture capital firms including San Diego-based Correlation Ventures and San Francisco-based GC&H, the venture capital arm of Cooley. HyperSpectral uses spectroscopy to identify E. coli, salmonella, listeria and other dangerous pathogens for the agricultural and medical industries. (News release)

The River District Association in Danville awarded four businesses more than $52,000 in grants to open or expand their brick-and-mortar businesses in the city’s River District, the organization announced May 22. Nine businesses pitched, and four were awarded funding: Links Coffee House, awarded $13,000; Social Circle Content Marketing, awarded $8,000, plus a $2,500 Community Investment Collaborative grant prize; Nancy Parris Interiors, awarded $10,000; and Valkyrie Aerial Acrobatics, awarded $19,000. (News release)

As of early June, Arlington County cloud management startup Stacklet had raised $14.5 million in funding to help boost its workforce and product offerings. The close of the Series B round brings the company’s total outside investment to $36.5 million since its founding by CEO Travis Stanfield and Kapil Thangavelu in 2020. SineWave Ventures, a San Francisco early-stage venture capital firm with a dual headquarters in Washington, D.C., led the round. Other firms that participated in Stacklet’s latest funding round include McLean’s Capital One Ventures, Palo Alto, California’s Foundation Capital and San Francisco’s Uncorrelated Ventures. (DC Inno)

Virginia Peninsula-based Start Peninsula named three finalists during its May 16 micro-pitch competition: Growables, a Norfolk-based houseplant kit company; Lockgreen, a Suffolk-based company that makes locking stash boxes for cannabis; and Vix, a fitness app from Norfolk-based Beige, a company founded by three Virginia Tech alumni. Each will compete at a championship pitch event for $5,000 in November, along with winners of three other micro-pitch contests held this year. (News release)

PEOPLE

Glen Allen-based fintech Koalafi has named Eric Kobe as president, the company announced May 17. He manages day-to-day operations and reports to Boomer Muth, the company’s CEO. Most recently, Kobe was CEO of Groundspeed, an insurance startup, and before that, held various management positions at Affirm, a leading buy-now, pay-later consumer financing company. “At Affirm, I witnessed the challenges that nearly 50% of prospective customers faced when denied credit,” Kobe said in a statement. “This represents a critical gap in financial access for an underserved population needing to make important purchases.” (News release)

McLean AI health care startup raises $111 million

A McLean-based health care tech startup wants to provide more targeted medical treatments for people with cancer, heart disease and other common diseases.

Zephyr AI, founded in 2020, is a precision medicine company on a mission to democratize personalized medicine and is doing it by developing artificial intelligence-powered algorithms that can glean insights from health care data.

“We can’t wait for the next generation of high-fidelity data to deliver on the promise of precision medicine,” says Jeff Sherman. A Zephyr co-founder and chief technology officer, he’s also been the company’s interim CEO since February. “We believe patients need solutions today, so a core tenet of our company has [been] to operate it with a sense of urgency.”

Precision medicine is an approach that uses an individual’s genomic, environmental and lifestyle information to guide decisions related to medical management.

In March, the McLean-based company announced it had raised $111 million in a Series A funding round from about 30 investors, including Revolution Growth, Eli Lilly & Co., Jeff Skoll and Epiq Capital Group.

The company’s co-founders include Grant Verstandig, an entrepreneur who has founded health care and defense companies, and Yisroel Brumer, an entrepreneur who was a past acting director of cost assessment and program evaluation for the Department of Defense.

“We’re bringing in new sources to produce, fine-tune and generate the next version of our algorithms for new, more nuanced precision medicine insights. So that’s on the data and buildout front,” Sherman says.

With 45 employees, Zephyr AI plans to grow its staff significantly over the second half of the year in science and engineering as well as building out a business development and commercial team.

In March 2022, Zephyr AI raised $18.5 million in seed funding, led by Lerner Group Investments and M-Cor Holdings. The company used it to develop core algorithms and put infrastructure in place to host a massive dataset as well as establish its core team.

Discussing his company’s success with investors, Sherman describes how Zephyr AI’s algorithms won them over during a demo.

“We were able to correctly identify how patients who are considered the same clinically actually respond differently to different drugs,” he says. “So, we’re able to demonstrate that in this real-world context, which I think is a pretty high bar for these kinds of companies.”  

StartVirginia: Heard Around Virginia

Bricklayer AI announced a pre-seed investment of $2.5 million to advance product development of its autonomous AI security analyst solution on May 2. The pre-seed round had participation from Sovereign’s Capital; Dreamit Ventures; Virginia Innovation Partnership Corp.’s Virginia Venture Partners fund; BlueWing Ventures; and Blu Ventures, as well as cybersecurity industry leaders. Bricklayer AI has built an autonomous security platform that combines multiple AI agents to form a team of AI specialists that collaborate with human peers on cybersecurity. (News release)

The Dominion Energy Innovation Center was awarded $150,000 from the Department of Energy in April through the Office of Technology Transitions’ Energy Program for Innovation Clusters (EPIC) round 3. It will fund efforts to accelerate and support startups doing work around data centers, including an accelerator program for startups focused on improving data center energy usage. The 11-week Hyperscaled program will be modeled after DEIC’s Accelerate program and will run from Sept. 9 through Nov. 22. (News release)

Richmond senior services startup Naborforce is expanding again in North Carolina, this time to Greensboro, Winston-Salem, High Point and the greater Wilmington area. The company, led by CEO Paige Wilson, announced in February a return to the Raleigh and Charlotte areas. Naborforce expanded into those North Carolina cities in 2021, but later pulled back. Naborforce currently operates in nine other markets — Richmond; Charlottesville; the Norfolk-Virginia Beach area; Northern Virginia; Washington, D.C.; Bethesda, Maryland; Atlanta and Savannah, Georgia; and Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas. (Richmond Inno)

A company working to derive cancer therapies from milk is the Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council’s top entrepreneur of the year. The council selected The Tiny Cargo Co. and its leader, Spencer Marsh, for its Hart of the Entrepreneur Impact Award during its May 8 TechNite 2024 celebration. The council also added Virginia Western Community College’s president, Robert Sandel, to its hall of fame. Marsh and Tiny Cargo are corralling milk exosomes — which serve as cells’ cargo delivery system — to carry drugs to humans dealing with radiation’s effects in cancer treatment. The exosomes might also treat other diseases. The Hart award honors the late Roanoke tech businessman Bonz Hart. (Cardinal News)

Over the past year, the Washington, D.C., metro area outpaced most of the nation in new job creation tied to artificial intelligence. That’s according to data compiled by UMD-LinkUp AI Maps — a joint effort from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business and LinkUp, a global labor market tracking firm. From March 2023 to March 2024, 1.77% of all job postings in Washington, D.C., were tied directly to roles involving AI, the research found, compared with 1.46% for Virginia. When looking at the Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia region as a whole, the region accounted for 11.7% of the nation’s 14,023 new AI job postings in March. (DC Inno)

PEOPLE

Benevento

Joe Benevento will remain the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corp.’s president and CEO permanently after serving in the role on an interim basis since September 2023, VIPC announced April 24. Benevento took over as interim CEO when Bob Stolle announced he was stepping down. A not-for-profit corporation created in 1985 by the General Assembly as an economic development organization for the tech sector, VIPC provides strategic commercialization and funding support to Virginia-based tech startups. (VirginiaBusiness.com) 

From salutes to startups

When Navy veteran Leland Remias was preparing to launch his Newport News real estate startup, VroomBrick, he looked for every resource possible to help him learn about business and scaling up.

First, he completed an MBA from William & Mary in May. And in 2022, he participated in the Veteran Startup Challenge, a five-week intensive boot camp that teaches foundational skills of innovation and entrepreneurship to current and former service members.

“There’s no shortage of resources if you seek them out,” says Remias, who left the Navy as a lieutenant after five years. “It just boils down to seeking out what you need, what the opportunity is.”

There’s also no shortage of veterans — or veteran entrepreneurs — in Virginia.

The commonwealth ranks No. 5 among states with the most military veterans, with the U.S. Census Bureau estimating that 671,519 veterans — or nearly 8% of Virginia’s population — called Virginia home in 2021.

As of 2023, there were 63,321 veteran- owned businesses and 6,974 businesses co-owned by vets in Virginia, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration. Veteran-owned businesses make up about 5.9% of all businesses nationwide, but that percentage is nearly double in Hampton Roads, which has the nation’s highest concentration of veteran-owned businesses among metro areas with more than 1 million people, according to the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission.

But veteran-owned businesses in Virginia are hardly limited to Hampton Roads. For example, Alexandria-based fintech startup Parlay is led by veterans and military spouses. With five full-time workers and three contractors, Parlay was founded in 2022 and has raised $1.7 million.

Co-founders Alexandra McLeod and Jay Long turned for help with Parlay to organizations like Hivers & Strivers Capital — a Great Falls-based venture capital firm that exclusively invests in veteran-led companies — and the Tysons-based PenFed Foundation, which has a Veteran Entrepreneur Program connecting founders with mentors.

“I think one of the most incredible parts of being a veteran entrepreneur in Virginia is your biggest challenge is not access to resources but … navigating all of them,” says Long, a 2013 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point who served as an Army infantry officer through 2022. “Each accelerator had something different to teach us.”

The biggest benefit at PenFed Foundation, the charitable arm of Pentagon Federal Credit Union, was getting connected to the veteran ecosystem, Long says.

This spring, PenFed’s Veteran Entrepreneur Program changed its focus from a traditional accelerator to more of an incubator/consultant model, says program manager Matthew Boyd. He works with a cohort of five or six companies for a six-week intensive period, but offers up to a year of support, including mentorship. A cohort will begin in June, and then another in September, with plans to expand to three or four cohorts annually, he says. A national program, it’s open to veterans and military spouses and targets those who have a minimum viable product ready to launch or are in the seed round raising capital, are generating revenue and are ready to take their company to the next level, Boyd says.

Another Northern Virginia-based supporter of veteran entrepreneurs is Hivers & Strivers Capital. Founded in 2017, the VC firm has deployed $80 million and has 16 active veteran-owned companies in its portfolio, says co-founder and partner Doug Doan, an Army veteran and West Point graduate. A typical first check to a founder from Hivers & Strivers totals between $250,000 and $500,000 in exchange for 10% to 15% equity, he says, and the firm often increases backing as companies grow.

Because Virginia has so many veterans, most general entrepreneurial support organizations here also help a significant number of veteran founders. One example is Virginia Apex Accelerator. An accelerator for small businesses seeking to be government contractors, it’s administered by George Mason University and co-funded by the federal government. Statewide Director Lisa Wood says her team spends a lot of time helping veterans learn about the government procurement process. Veteran founders, she says, are “very open to new concepts and very driven to succeed.”

Another program aimed at veteran entrepreneurs is the Veterans Business Outreach Center at Old Dominion University’s Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, funded partially by the SBA. Staff members travel around Virginia and West Virginia teaching the SBA’s Boots to Business classes, a free training program offered through the Department of Defense’s Transition Assistance Program.

Boots to Business is open to active-duty service members, veterans, U.S. military reservists and National Guard members, along with their dependents and transitioning service members. It includes a two-day classroom course and an eight-week online course. Participants learn how to evaluate business concepts and other foundational knowledge required to develop a business plan. “We’ll be teaching it 80 times this year,” says VBOC director Don Miller.

VBOC has helped eligible veterans, their dependents and transitioning service members start nearly 500 veteran- or veteran-family-owned businesses over the past decade, Miller says. “We’re not getting them started and walking away.” 

Freelance writer Sandy John contributed to this story.

A sampling of resources for veteran entrepreneurs

Hivers & Strivers Capital
Venture capital fund that invests exclusively in companies led by U.S. military veterans
hiversandstriverscapital.com

Veteran Entrepreneur Program
Incubator/consultant model, working with five to six companies for six-week intensive period, with up to a year of support. Cohorts start in June and September.
penfedfoundation.org/how-we-help/veip

Veterans Entrepreneurs Scholars program at William & Mary
An intensive five-week entrepreneurship boot camp that trains current and former service members about innovation and entrepreneurship
wm.edu/offices/veterans/certificates/entrepreneurs

Veterans Startup Challenge
An initiative to train military veterans to create their own jobs through entrepreneurship and to begin careers in tech
veteranstartupchallenge.org

Virginia Small Business
Development Centers Offers a variety of resources for veteran-owned small businesses
virginiasbdc.org/veteran-owned-small-business-resources

Virginia APEX Accelerator
Offers classes and counseling for businesses that want to be government contractors, especially with the Department of Defense
virginiaapex.org

Veterans Business Outreach Center
Provides entrepreneurial development services to eligible veterans who own or are considering starting small businesses
ww1.odu.edu/iie/vboc

EY taps 14 Virginians as Mid-Atlantic Entrepreneur of the Year finalists

Fourteen Virginia business leaders are among the 30 finalists for Ernst & Young’s 2024 Mid-Atlantic Entrepreneur of the Year award.

EY announced the finalists, selected by a panel of independent judges, on April 22. The Big Four professional services company will name the regional awards winners on June 15.

The Virginia finalists include:

  • Anil Sharma, CEO of 22nd Century Technologies, Tysons
  • Kevin Kelly, chair and CEO of Arcfield, Chantilly
  • Julie Sciullo, CEO of Association Analytics, Arlington County
  • Sukumar Iyer, founder, executive chair and CEO of Brillient, Reston
  • Sid Chowdhary, founder and CEO of Credence Management Solutions, Tysons
  • Dan Berkon, CEO and president of Culmen International, Alexandria
  • Tom Walker, founder and CEO of DroneUp, Virginia Beach
  • Burton White, co-founder and CEO of Excella, Arlington County
  • Tim McLaughlin, co-founder and CEO of GoTab, Arlington County
  • Tim Springer, founder and CEO of Level Access, Arlington County
  • Kristina Bouweiri, president and CEO of Reston Limousine, Sterling
  • Dave Sterling, founder and CEO of Royce Geospatial Consultants, Arlington County
  • Glenn Diersen, founder and president of Summit Human Capital, Richmond
  • Tobias Dengel, president of WillowTree, Charlottesville

EY’s Mid-Atlantic region covers Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. Of the 30 finalists, nine were from Maryland, and the remaining seven from the District. In total, the mid-Atlantic regional finalists generated nearly $2.8 billion in 2023 and employed more than 16,000 people. Over the most recent three-year period, they averaged an 86% growth in revenue and a 38% growth in employees.

In the U.S., the EY competition is divided into 17 regions. Regional winners compete in November for national awards, and the national winner represents the U.S. in EY’s World Entrepreneur of the Year competition, which includes winners from nearly 60 countries. EY founded its Entrepreneur of the Year program in 1986.

StartVirginia: HEARD AROUND VIRGINIA

Comcast said April 9 it is opening grant applications for a program benefiting small businesses across Greater Richmond. The global cable broadcasting company said the grant packages include business coaching, education sources, media schedules, creative production, technology makeovers and $5,000 in cash. Comcast’s RISE program is aimed at supporting the growth of small businesses while advancing diversity, equity and inclusion, and community investment objectives. Small businesses can apply for the grants throughout the month of May and a total of 100 grants for the Richmond area are planned to be announced in August. (Richmond Inno)

Lightshift Energy, an Arlington County startup that builds energy storage systems, has raised $100 million from a repeat investor to significantly expand its workforce and project pipelines over the next year. The Series B round brings Rossyln-based Lightshift’s total outside funding to $120 million. Founded in 2019 by Michael Herbert and Rory Jones, the company was previously called Delorean Power. The investment from two affiliates of Greenbacker Capital Management, a New York funder of renewable energy firms that gave the company $20 million in initial funding, has been split into two respective tranches. (DC Inno)

The Regional and Accelerator Mentoring Program (RAMP) has selected four teams for its spring cohort, the organization announced April 2. RAMP serves startups across the Roanoke and New River valleys. The cohort includes Roanoke-based Alice Innovations, a tech startup aiming to improve operating room service efficiency; Falls Church-based Bacchus Therapeutics, which makes a drug that targets specific cancer metabolic pathways; Roanoke-based Recens Respiratio, a health startup working to produce an autonomous nasal cannula system that will respond in real time to changes in patient oxygen demands; and Blacksburg-based Scanlily, which provides a QR code-based method for managing assets and equipment. During the 12-week cohort program, startups will receive $20,000 in nonequity funding, free office space and other perks. (VirginiaBusiness.com)

The Retail Alliance and Phoebus Partnership announced five small businesses in Hampton will receive $3,000 to $5,000 grants and expert consulting as part of a pilot program. The Retail Alliance is using a $100,000 Virginia Business District Resurgence grant from the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development to help existing businesses in Phoebus. Eleven businesses applied, and judges selected five: Art Central Gallery, Happy Hempo, Palace Jewelers, SeeWhich Books and Sly Clyde Ciderworks. (Inside Business)

A veteran-led and -owned venture capital firm is relocating its corporate headquarters from Knoxville, Tennessee, to Tysons to be closer to the types of startups it targets for investments: national security contractors led by one or more veterans. Veteran Ventures Capital is set to take up office space in the Boro Tower on Broad Street, steps away from the Greensboro Metro station and Tysons Galleria. Derren Burrell, founder and managing partner of the firm, will return to the region after doing several tours during his 20-year career with the U.S. Air Force. He joins Josh Weed, a general partner of the firm already based in Northern Virginia. (DC Inno)

Rural Southwest and Southside Virginia are in line for a new six-figure grant for entrepreneurship, the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corp. announced March 21. The innovation partnership, which held its board meeting at the New College Institute in Martinsville, gave word that it will commit $100,000. That’s the latest grant in a series that the partnership has awarded within the region over the past couple of years. (Cardinal News)