Nov 10, 2023

by Jim Roberts, founder of NEW — November 10, 2023 . WILMINGTON  – The Network for Entrepreneurs in Wilmington (NEW) will host David Hall, Managing Director of the Rise of the Rest Venture Capital Fund. The Rise of the Rest Fund is part of Revolution Capital, the fund started by AOL founder Steve Case. This event will be hosted at Ironclad Brewery in downtown Wilmington on November 16 at 4 PM. The theme of the event is “Helping Wilmington Startups Rise Above the Rest.” Cofounders Capital Managing Partner Tim McLoughlin has agreed to be the moderator of the Riverside Chat with David Hall after the opening comments. [To register for the FREE event – https://WilmingtonRiseAboveTheRest.eventbrite.com ] The Rise of the Rest Fund is a $150 million dollar venture capital fund based in Washington DC that invests in cities outside of New York, Boston and Silicon Valley. Rise of the Rest is also an investor led bus tour of “second tier” cities looking for investor deals and also a book by Steve Case. The book is now available in paperback. In 2015, the Rise of the Rest bus tour with Steve Case and other investors traveled from Washington DC, to cities like Richmond, Durham, Charleston, Atlanta and New Orleans. The theory of the bus tour of investors is that 75% of the venture capital in the US is invested in three states – California, New York and Boston, Massachusetts. The leaders of the fund recognize there is entrepreneurial talent and opportunity in other cities and states. The keynote speaker for the November 16 event is David Hall, Managing Director of the fund, is a Morehouse College grad and also earned a MBA degree from Harvard University. Mr. Hall has been part of Revolution Capital since 2006 and has been involved in 150 investments. Revolution Capital was recently ranked in the top 60 venture capital funds in the USA. This event will be part of the Global Entrepreneurship Week series of events in Wilmington. https://revolution.com/team-member/david-hall/ The Network for Entrepreneurs in Wilmington (NEW) is an independent non-profit that helps local entrepreneurs build successful startups that create better jobs at the coast. NEW does five things for regional entrepreneurs: Events, Communications / Media relations, Mentor introductions, Investor preparation and introductions and Advocacy on the three most important startup committees in North Carolina to represent Wilmington. The Wilmington NC startup ecosystem has had unprecedented growth since the formal infrastructure was put in place in 2013. According to both ecosystem ranking system organizations, StartupGenome and StartupBlink, Wilmington NC is the #1 ecosystem in the WORLD for cities with populations under 300,000. In September, NEW hosted an event with 250 people registered as the largest event in the history of the organization. Since the Network for Entrepreneurs in Wilmington was founded in 2015, NEW has hosted more than 100 angel investors and venture capitalists to Wilmington to speak at startup events. In April, NEW hosted the inaugural Wilmington INVESTOR BUZZ In event that included 53 out of town investors with Reverse Pitches by five investors, six local startups pitching and a keynote by Scot Wingo of Spiffy and the Tweener Fund. While the majority of the entrepreneurial growth in Wilmington has been from the Live Oak Bank family of companies such as nCino and Apiture, companies started by George Taylor and others have also been raising investment capital and hiring. Raleon, Ohanafy Software and Kwipped have raised rounds of capital since April. Wilmington was recently ranked #7 city in the USA for job growth and salary growth, only four spots behind the state capital of Raleigh. (Milken Institute) In addition, NEW has added an opening speaker Charlotte Ketelaar to educate the entrepreneurs in the audience on the post investor presentation due diligence. Through the NEW and WALE Angel Network process, Wilmington entrepreneurs have met more than 100 different regional investors so NEW added this extra session to strengthen the knowledge about the process and documents needed to close the deal and land the investment. More on Ketelaar https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlotte-ketelaar-26674a66/ This event is already being promoted by the organization behind the Global Entrepreneurship Week. For more information about this event, please contact Jim Roberts, Founder of the Network for Entrepreneurs in Wilmington and the WALE Angel Network. (Email – newilm910@gmail.com)