Lisa Calhoun
Welcome to the Virginia Startup Podcast. I’m Lisa Calhoun, the founding managing partner of Valor Ventures. We are a seed lead investor active across the south and interested in core states like Virginia. The purpose of this podcast is to make sure the Virginia startup community is connected with Valor resources and some of the resources right in Virginia that are ready to support the next great global company. So today’s guest is really special, someone with a long career in innovation and economic development, I’m really excited to have Paula Sorrell from George Mason University, where she’s the associate vice president of innovation and economic development. Welcome to the program, Paula.
Paula Sorrell
Thanks. I’m so excited to be here, Lisa.
Lisa Calhoun
I’m so excited you’re here too. Well, you know a lot of universities don’t have innovation or economic development programs, and I know you have a career in it, even before George Mason doing very similar work at the University of Michigan. Could you share a little bit more about why the University invests in innovation?
Paula Sorrell
Sure. I would say that the first half of my career was in startups, and I did seven, and six of them sold. Some of them, I was with them when they sold, and some sold later. Sometimes I had a little equity, sometimes I had a lot of equity. But it was a fun ride. And then I got interested in, I went into state government to run innovation, entrepreneurship, and venture capital for the state of Michigan during the great recession, because who doesn’t like a challenge? And it was to create a bunch of programs. And there was a lot of learning in that, a lot of lessons learned about what levers to pull, what things work, what doesn’t work, what works short term, what things should be around forever, or sort of forever. And then I went to the University of Michigan, the belly of the beast, which is, Michigan is the largest research university in the country. It gets over a billion 8 five, I think, now in federal and federal research. And so it was a great playground to teach. I got to teach entrepreneurship. I got to teach technology commercialization and engineering, which was really fun. Loved working with the students but also I got to create programs where we worked with companies from the outside and entering people to work with them. And I wasn’t really looking for a job. I was actually hired by Virginia to give some advice on how to make investments in higher ed that would result in more technologies out the door, more companies stood up, and that led to a conversation with George Mason, and I was fascinated that basically, almost all the programs that support entrepreneurs, federal programs, landed at Mason maybe because of its proximity to DC, I’m not sure why, and the fact that, really, I had barely heard of George Mason University, and it’s the largest university in Virginia with 40,000 Students.
Lisa Calhoun
Wow, I did not know the largest if I would have guessed, I would have guessed wrong at the University of Virginia, or something like that.
Paula Sorrell
Yeah, and it’s only 50 years old. So, working at a large, long-standing, very successful university was great. I would say doing new things are, it takes a little bit longer because you’re challenging the status quo we’ve always been great at this, so why should we change it? And, it takes a lot of convincing. At Mason, I found that the culture is more like, Sure, we’ll try anything. What do you want to do? People will always say, How can I help? I mean, they don’t always have the bandwidth to help. In fact, they usually don’t, but they at least are good-intentioned.
Lisa Calhoun
Very southern as well. Just like, yeah, yes, and yeah.
Paula Sorrell
They do, yeah, very, very true. And I wasn’t sure, I had worked also in Miami and Atlanta for a while, but mostly in Michigan. I wasn’t sure how it was going to be affirmed in western are going into into this region, but I found that surprisingly, I don’t know why I was surprised. I shouldn’t be surprised, but they were very open to outside people coming in, and everybody’s very welcoming, and they just figure out kind of where you fit, and how you can help, and how to collaborate. And I couldn’t be happier with the way things turned out.
Lisa Calhoun
Things in the South actually have more diversity than the Northeast and the Midwest, so it’s kind of interesting. But when you look at melting pots like Houston, New Orleans, Atlanta, Miami, and DC, people have learned to embrace inclusion in business and the last, really, 50 years, and it’s changed the culture in such a positive way. But I digress, let’s get back to George Mason and your work there. I have to bring up a challenging point. One of the challenging points I often encounter is that VC media, which of course, is West Coast-based, where a large majority of investments are made. They like to represent that entrepreneurship and innovation is inherent, and you cannot support it, create it. You’ve either got it or you don’t. What have you learned in your career around entrepreneurship? Is it something inherent, or can that fire be stoked?
Paula Sorrell
Are you asking me the nature and nurture question?
Lisa Calhoun
Pretty much, yeah. But every entrepreneur that’s interested in venture capital, my world, they read TechCrunch, and sometimes I wish they didn’t. Now that TechCrunch is bad, it’s not, it’s just you have to understand what it’s good at, and what it’s good at is reporting out of San Francisco for the most part. And that’s not the rest of the world where most founders come from. 40% of the US population is in the South. Guess what? That’s about how many entrepreneurs we have, 40% of them. So TechCrunch doesn’t really speak to a large segment of entrepreneurs in the country.
Paula Sorrell
Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. I think it’s a combination of both. I think certain things can be taught and you’ve got to have the hustle, and you’ve got to want to have the hustle. Very few founders go into business, I think wanting to get wealthy. I think they do it because they have a passion for something. And maybe the idea of of doing this thing and doing it a bigger way is really, what drives them. And there’s, you’ve got to have a little bit of it in you, too. I started my first business in my dorm room at college because I couldn’t afford college. I was a first-generation college student, so I ran a business out of my dorm room.
Lisa Calhoun
We have that in common. I just have to say it’s always so good to have a conversation with you. But my mom gave me a fax machine for my birthday when I was in college on scholarship so that I could make money, and I ran a small business out of my dorm room because I could make more money doing that than I’m sure as you working in the cafeteria or other things I was qualified for. But anyway, that’s fun. So I have to ask, what kind of business were you running out of that dorm room?
Paula Sorrell
So I had been fortunate to go to Catholic schools in Detroit, and the nuns thought I would make an excellent Secretary someday. So I was good at spelling, grammar, sentence structure, and typing, so I used to edit and type term papers for people.
Lisa Calhoun
And that was when you were at Harvard.
Paula Sorrell
No, no, that was it. That wasn’t it that was at Central Michigan University. I went to the cheapest State University.
Lisa Calhoun
It was the start, yes.
Paula Sorrell
Yeah, that was the start.
Lisa Calhoun
That’s a great story. So you have to have the inherent hustle, that’s a little bit nature, you would say.
Paula Sorrell
Yeah.
Lisa Calhoun
And the things that you’ve seen can be developed through programs, because I know you’re known for starting quite a few just before we got on this podcast recording, you were telling me you start like for a year, which is incredible productivity.
Paula Sorrell
Yeah. Well, it’s to build an ecosystem, because not every entrepreneur starts at the same point, and not everyone is headed to the same point. We try to meet people where they are and get them to their next point as fast as we can. And you need a variety of programs to be able to do that. Everybody needs something a little bit different. So in addition to, I mean, not just starting programs, but I also counseled probably more than 1000 businesses in my career so far, my husband does the same thing. So he also counsels businesses. He used to be an attorney in Silicon Valley, and, we bounce ideas off of each other all the time, but in counseling companies, I would say they almost always have the two skill sets usually working for a brilliant technical founder, and the two skill sets that they usually need, which is just things that they didn’t train for, are finance and marketing almost all the time. Those are the two things they need. That’s where the starting point is, and helping them understand and for a first-time entrepreneur, they don’t know what they don’t know, so you’re trying to bring them to the table, make connections for them, make introductions for them, give them some strategic guidance and where they need to go. And we don’t want them to talk to a funder until they’re ready. I mean, there’s only one chance to make a first impression and it’s not necessarily like, right, when you need money, it’s just. Just when you’re ready to talk about what you do, and you’re able to say, this is what I’m going to do, and I’m going to come back to you in six months, nine months, whatever, and I’m going to ask you for money at that time. But in the meantime, watch, watch me. Or here’s my strategy that I’m setting up, and here are the milestones that I tend to achieve. So I love the counseling business. I love hearing the entrepreneur’s stories. love the problem-solving part of it, and helping them figure out, what’s coming next, and the more resources we can put around that. And I would say right now, I don’t get to have as much fun as I would like to, because I’m, overseeing programs. I have a team of more than 100 counselors that help businesses of every type. So we help, wow. Women start daycare centers, which, by the way, is a huge drag on the economy right now, not having enough childcare. So we’re, we’re trying to help the economy in that end, and then all the way through to tech companies. And by the way, more than 60% of our clients are women-owned businesses
Lisa Calhoun
Wow. I have to love that stat. Actually, since women, US women brought home 65% of the Olympic medals, I tend to think when women go to win, we tend to over-compete and do a great job. So I’m sure those are some very stunning founders. Now, when it comes to venture funding, I just have to double-click on something. You said it’s something to prepare for, but it’s a learnable skill. So, myself as one of the first women to launch an institutional venture capital firm three funds ago, I had a lot to learn as well about venture capital, and found some of those educational resources, for example, the Kaufman Fellows Program. But venture as a journey for the founder, it appears like it’s relatively simple, because, in a way, we’re usually fairly familiar with loan terms. Maybe someone got a mortgage or they did a lease application, and they think, Hmm, I’ll fill in the blanks, and this will all work out. But when it comes to getting venture financing, there’s a whole process and culture around it that is quite opaque but learnable through programs, and that’s one of the reasons why I’m excited to bring our kind of entry-level funding program to Virginia. Startup Runway is running its first cohort on September 17 in Richmond. And so what Startup Runway does is it provides grant checks. These are not these are completely non-dilutive grant checks supported by our sponsors, in this case, the National Science Foundation and Virginia Invest, and we’re certainly looking for more sponsors in Virginia, but we introduce chosen, select, high-potential pre-seed startups, usually they don’t have revenue yet, to investors in mentor sessions, where they get to present problems and get mentor feedback from those investors and work that into how they even frame the opportunity of their company. Because the way they’re thinking about the opportunity may not be the way a long-term investor would, and that’s okay. Having that doesn’t mean it’s opposition, but the founder does have to sort of marry those goals, and that can certainly be learned.
Paula Sorrell
Yeah, that’s one thing that’s important for founders to understand, too, is how you take the feedback and whether you take the feedback, it’s basically, there’s a box that we look for when we’re and we’re providing no-cost counseling. We’re not VCs, we’re but we have a good track record of the companies we work with have a great track record of getting funding. But almost the first checkbox we look for is coachable, or uncoachable. And coachable means, willing to take advice, willing to fix those things that need to be fixed, so that, we’re not doing it because it’s fun to say, like, here are the holes in your business. We’re doing it because, the thing that we get valued on from, from all of our government funders and support system are how well the companies do that we support. So it’s not about it’s not about us. It’s about did the companies go on to access angel investment and venture capital. Do they get line bank or lines of credit? Do they hire people? Do they establish do they do they expand the company? Do they have a good exit, or do they partner with somebody else? So do they get strategic investment? All of those things are considered wins, and so we’re kind of the biggest cheerleader for any startup in Virginia.
Lisa Calhoun
How do Virginia startups? How many do you touch in a year through this program?
Paula Sorrell
So, multiple programs. Again, our total portfolio of companies is 30,000 small businesses and that’s through multiple programs. Some of them have been around for 20 years. If I look at just the tech sector of businesses, I would say we’re closing in on the 1600 company range in terms of tech startups.
Lisa Calhoun
That’s fantastic. And so when you look at your tech startups, do you have a figure? And I don’t mean to put you on the spot. If you don’t have it off the top of your head, you don’t but how much funding the tech startups as a collective group have been able to attract?
Paula Sorrell
We do when we look at just for example, the ICAP Mentor Program, which is it was a program that was created to catch up with 20 other states that had a similar program. It’s basically the tech team that’s on a small business development center or SBDC, and they provided no-cost counseling. So in two and a half years, those companies went on to get over $200 million in follow-on funding. If we look at, yeah, if we look at like our accelerate investor event, which we’ll talk about later, but the companies that have pitched were, we’ve done that for three years now. Built up, started small, built up bigger. Those companies have raised so far $47 million in follow-up funding.
Lisa Calhoun
Big numbers, big impacts.
Paula Sorrell
Big numbers and sometimes they’re small checks, and sometimes they’re big checks. And it depends on what the company needs. And we’ll, like I said, we’ll, we’ll try to get them what they need to look good. And you and I were talking before about one thing that they need to look good is they need to the biggest, the biggest check mark they can have. Obviously, you, as a funder, look at the entrepreneur, and are they a good entrepreneur, are they capable? Do they do they instill confidence? But also, where are they willing to convince somebody to buy? And one of the things that somebody says I get, I hear this a lot about my track record with startups, was, how did you pick so many good startups? And I say, Well, I looked at if the if the technical founder, was able to convince a customer to buy, I knew I would be able to.
Lisa Calhoun
Absolutely, customer diligence, even though we’re a seed lead investor. And, I was just sharing it with you. Don’t mind sharing with our audience that Valor just extended another term sheet. Thank goodness. We do that, once a month, and we try for twice a month. But in any event, the company had 50k in actual revenue in the last year, and they have contracts into 150k which are signed. And that’s happening, but that’s a very young company. That’s the type we’ve certainly backed companies with more revenue than that, including up to almost over a million. But the truth is, as a seed lead, our sweet spot is that early scale, but we still ask customers, why they’re buying. Why did they choose this relatively unproven solution? And honestly, their answer means so much about how we can project if that market is a real, scalable market at a venture scale, not will the business survive, but will it survive to deliver five, six, and 30x returns to those first investors? So such an important point. Can you get that sales and marketing motion early? I mean, if we can get it to a certain scale, then we’re going to be able to hire professionals to run it for you, but you have to get them first.
Paula Sorrell
Yeah, one of the things this was something that I learned in Michigan, but, it’s been a helpful tool for us in walking companies through how to get from here to there is a technology roadmap, which is thinking through the finance elements, how much money are you going to need when, what people are you going to have to hire and when, over a timeline, and who will your customers be and when? And that’s the toughest part to map out.
Lisa Calhoun
It is, especially for the first-time founder, and honestly, that’s where advice from counselors who’ve been there, done that, and seen the journeys of 1600 tech companies, can provide some boundaries. Like, yeah, this is kind of these are where the ditch sides might be. And now you can choose your path in between. But that combination of passion from the entrepreneur, but lack of experience, of course, and experience from counselors. That sounds like a win. Tell me how a startup applies, or what the criteria application process looks like.
Paula Sorrell
So that’s a great question. We have a ‘No Wrong Door’ approach. So while we’re a team of in total, 200 people, we make sure that whoever you talk to first and under the Mason Enterprise umbrella, is going to get you where you need to go with the fewest number of hops. I mean, we do exercises with a ball of yarn saying, This is what the company needs next. This. Is where they go next so that we can make sure that we’re being as efficient as possible. So it, it doesn’t matter. You can come in through the Small Business Development Center or the ICAP. You can come in through the APEX accelerator, which is DOD. You can come to one of our Mason enterprise centers, which are incubators. We operate five of those in Northern Virginia will get you to where you need to be. And I mentioned that we have so we work in every county of Virginia. We have clients everywhere. We also work with the local partners on the ground. So, the local partners in Richmond and Roanoke and Blacksburg and Charlottesville. We enjoy kind of those, those handoffs, where we’re filling a gap, but not duplicating effort.
Lisa Calhoun
How does this sort of program complement the George Mason University experience? Because it sounds like a major give-back, and it’s a very good thing. And I’m just curious about the university side of it.
Paula Sorrell
Oh, that’s a great question. The President of the University has an initiative he calls the Mason Virginia Promise, which is that any Virginian can get a pathway towards a degree or the support to starting a business, and we’re the second part of that Mason Virginia promise. We offer more than 900 training programs on every topic, like, how to start a business, how to set up your QuickBooks for the first time, but also how to be cyber secure, how to get your next government contract, or whatever it is that you’re headed to, we hold a workshop on it, and we usually partner with with the professional community as well, attorneys, accountants, banks. Some of the content we offer ourselves, but regardless, 98% of the programs we offer are at no cost, so it doesn’t matter if you’re a student, if you’re a faculty member, or just a business in Virginia, you can attend. And more than 70% of those programs are online. So it makes it easy to join.
Lisa Calhoun
Right, you don’t have to travel, you don’t have to have parking fees, you don’t have to your kids can be in the room if you need them to be all the things fantastic. So let me ask you if you could wave a wand and I’m going to time limit you said it’s a little more immediate and change something in the next year for Virginia founders. What would you change? What would you lean on? And just if you were omnipotent, what’s something that you would love to see change?
Paula Sorrell
Oh my gosh. I think that we have such potential in Virginia, such untapped potential. I’d like to see more. I’d like to see larger universities. So our largest research university is ranked 40th in the country right now, we are bookended on either state by by top 10 institutions in other states, and I think that we have a lot of potential to grow more research equals more startups, ultimately, which is more of a feeder for people like you and me, who whose, job is to make sure that they go faster. And then I think we need to continue on an evolution of building startups. We need to continue to pull those levers. One of the biggest needs, we went through, is gap analysis for Northern Virginia, but we think about it in terms of, what gaps can we help fill. What are others filling? Who do we partner with? We have those conversations all the time. helping companies get customers for the first time is a really big one. The mentorship piece has not been figured out. So there’s not a consistent way to fund the mentors that helped. The ROI on that is like, a for-a-million dollar year program that helped companies get, over 200 million that’s quite a significant ROI. It’s worth the investment, and we need to be long-term and consistent. I belong to a national organization and a few national organizations. Everybody does, sure, but there is a group of us who are practitioners, that are kind of in the same space. Not all of us work. Most don’t work for universities, but, but some do. And we talk all the time about what’s important to keep going, and what are the biggest challenges that we all face nationally. And the things that they talk about is consistent funding to the ecosystem is really important organizations that are the glue. So an organization like mine is as illustrious as it sounds. We are the we’re glue organization. And glue is hard to fund. People like to fund new shiny objects. And the important thing is to be. Double down on what you know is working and do more of that.
Lisa Calhoun
Are you familiar with how much of the George Mason Foundation is invested in the early stage?
Paula Sorrell
Yeah, so George Mason is only a 50-year-old institution, fortunately, most of our alumni are still alive. The vast majority of them are right because it grew so quickly. Also, most of our alumni are very young, so we’re the only university that doesn’t have a significant endowment.
Lisa Calhoun
Interesting things to think about in the future, but one of the pieces of feedback I get the opportunity to speak with is a number of endowments, and we have some endowments among our LP base, thankfully. Those endowments that choose to invest and accelerate their communities, whatever, how, what do they define those regionally, locally? There’s a lot of variety there. There is a true loop of beneficial reward in those situations. And of course, it’s very high risk, because often they’re going, if not first among the first. But it’s something, of course, I encourage, because if you’re right there, you’ve got an unfair advantage in your local technology community that you are building. And the feedback loop of those successes is enriching, not just financially, but on so many levels for all involved. So it’s an opportunity that might be a program for.
Paula Sorrell
You’re right, you’re right. And my board wants to do a fund. So they’re they’re supportive in that way. We joke that there’s never a right time to do a fund. So we talk about, like, when will that right time be?
Lisa Calhoun
Let me tell you, as in fact, there are no good times to startup, but, you know.
Paula Sorrell
The foundation is very supportive. So, I actually have a fundraiser assigned to me that helps raise funds for entrepreneur programs. So they’re extremely supportive and wonderful partners. And then the GMU Instructional Foundation does invest, and they do some investments in startups, and they help seed some of my programs as well, to get them going and help us think creatively about how we operate.
Lisa Calhoun
That’s exciting. That’s an exciting kernel, and I hope it continues to develop rapidly when it comes to the economic development relationship between startups and the local community. Call it North Virginia, or all of Virginia. Have you noticed a correlation between, like, Good job growth, tech job growth, and startup success?
Paula Sorrell
Yes, I used to, so part of the work I did at U of M was I was also a researcher and led a team of researchers where we looked at best practices and economic development, and it’s usually about 10 years before you start, eight to 10 years before you start to see that that significant job growth. I mean, we’re talking about a knowledge economy. And what is the so an educated knowledge-based economy? What’s the opposite of that? I think we want to have an educated, knowledge-based economy, those jobs are typically higher paying, so they’re usually twice what a typical economic development play is in terms of the jobs that get created. But it’s a lagging number. So, if you make an economic development, if you make an investment in a factory, I come from a land of factories, you’re going to see, the factory opens the door. They hire a bunch of jobs and tech development, It’s a source of.
Lisa Calhoun
You also have to build the factory a lot of times. And so when you’re looking at the sunk cost and the ROI it can take longer. One of the things I like about early-stage venture capital is when Valor writes, say, a million-dollar check, you can be assured that’s going into at least 10 well-paying tech jobs that year.
Paula Sorrell
Well, that’s the first thing they need, right? That’s the reason they raise money. The startups need people, and that’s why they need the additional capital,
Lisa Calhoun
Absolutely. I mean, that’s, that’s usually exactly it. And they need developers. And while not everyone will be hired locally, there’s definitely still, even in this global-local environment, the core team tends to be hired around the CEO who raised the capital for the highest paying jobs to nearly stay in that environment. And so it’s a big economic development opportunity in the early stages, which, interestingly enough, they’re the riskier ones. And of course, it’s so much easier to think about real estate or land development and multiple uses. But in this economy and our future economy, the way I see it, there’s so much opportunity in Virginia. Yeah, and across the south look at the impact of local venture capital at the earliest stages for economic development, as well as returns.
Paula Sorrell
Agree! And there’s, there’s also a good, there’s also good research that shows that there’s a track record of, usually people don’t exit a company successfully and then move to an island. They usually stay in their they stay in their region, they reinvest in their community, and they either decide to start another company or start investing in companies or support the ecosystem in some other way, through through volunteerism, coaching advising, and providing guidance. maybe some of them start funds. And everybody, everybody takes a different tack. I went, I went the education route, although I consider myself to be a capitalist first and economic developer, second and an educator, third, I guess, in that, in that order.
Lisa Calhoun
So the impact you’re having across literally almost 2000 now tech startups in your state is amazing. Honestly, I don’t think I know of a single person who can claim that kind of contrail in startups from one position, you have so much to be proud of, and George Mason as well.
Paula Sorrell
Well, I think the point is it’s not a single person. I mean, I have an incredible team of people, a core of 40, and then the 200 extended team. And none of this could be done without partners. Partners in the state that have trusted us, our federal partners, and the counties in Northern Virginia, have been amazing supporters and critical strategic partners for us to think through how we do things. So it’s not, I don’t want it to sound ever like it’s a person, it’s a team of people.
Lisa Calhoun
I know, for example, I mean Valor, a lot of our team is headquartered in Atlanta, but we would be not nearly so far with so many wonderful founder conversations in Virginia without people on the ground. For example, our Venture Partner, Craig Snodgrass, in Midlothian, Virginia, I have never been I will, I’m sure, go someday. But he has an incredible startup background and helped take a company to public markets, and IPO as well, in his last position. But his input, his coffees, chats, lunches meetings.
Paula Sorrell
Love the VVP coffees. I mean they’re such good partners and a good team. If I need somebody to screen something, if I need investors to show up to something, they are always there for us, and they give good advice along the way. So they do the hard work.
Lisa Calhoun
They do a lot of work. It is an incredible team. Could not agree more. So I’m curious about some of your top, most distinguished, most successful, I don’t know how you would call it, programs. Are there one or two that you’d love to highlight and make sure that startups and founders listening to us if they don’t already know that they put these on their radar?
Paula Sorrell
Yeah, so ICAP of course, is an important part of the SBDC we’re working on beefing up the resources so that we can support more companies under that program. But it has a huge opportunity, and I’ve seen it work in so many states with such a high ROI.
Lisa Calhoun
So startup would go to the Small Business Development Council. Is that? How is that kind of one of the doors?
Paula Sorrell
Yeah, Small Business Development Center, that’s a door, but it doesn’t, again, it doesn’t matter, we’ll get you where you need to go. We are excited about our partnership across the mid-south so we’re a member of the Mid-South hub, where we provide support to faculty members under NSF iCorps, we also have an ICAP lean startup program where we put companies through a lot of accelerators around the state have plugged ICAP into the middle of their accelerator to provide specifically that type of resource and mentorship. I love that program. I love all our programs. I mean, because of where we are, we run the Apex accelerator for Virginia, I’m pretty sure that we’re the largest one in the country, It’s government contracting. And while we have a huge economic splash, over $3 billion of our impact last year on small businesses was in government contracting.
Lisa Calhoun
Wow! Tell me more about that. So in connecting startups, and small businesses, with government contract opportunities?
Paula Sorrell
Yes, for startups and small businesses, we have a fantastic team of counselors. But also we put on a lot of we put on a lot of programs too, and we do a lot of meet and greets with government contractors as well, so that you can understand. And what they need. I have a team that’s very, very, very detailed in helping people make sure that they’re putting in good applications. And so that’s, I mean, that’s how you get a $3 billion in one year impact.
Lisa Calhoun
What are some of the give me a sense of the range of government contracts available in a year?
Paula Sorrell
Oh, it’s anything from janitorial to drone parts to software. It’s unlimited. And, we sometimes refer to the federal government as the world’s largest customer, and we’re right next door to the world’s largest customer, so why not embrace it?
Lisa Calhoun
No, it’s a huge opportunity. It should be embraced. And so, 3 billion of impact from that program. Did you say?
Paula Sorrell
Yes, that comes from DOD. They’re the data collector for federal government contracts, and they give that number to us.
Lisa Calhoun
Fantastic.
Paula Sorrell
Yes.
Lisa Calhoun
It’s also super curious to learn more about your investor conference. You were saying it’s four years old. Maybe you could tell me a little bit more about why you started it kind of the goals behind accelerate.
Paula Sorrell
Oh my gosh. Well, I started this job during COVID. I accepted it before COVID started. Started it right after. And so I had six months from a chair in another state to try to figure out what to do. So I interviewed more than 100 people in the ecosystem and around the state, and said, What do you think the ecosystem needs, and what role do you think Mason should play in the ecosystem? And everyone was circling around, we need to convene for investors. We need to bring in investors from outside. Well, a friend and I, prior to this, she was, we were co-managing directors of an organization. She was the first employee. And it’s, it’s clean tech group in San Francisco. And we used to do investor events around the world. So we’d bring in, bringing big investors. It’d be like a 1200-person event on Nob Hill, 300 people in Boston or New York. And then we did Western Europe and Asia, and then we burned out, and we both went and did other things. But coming here, I said, Hey, what do you think? should we, should we try this year? And she said, Sure, I’m game. So the first covered, enough, yeah, yeah, the first year we had, it was a Hail Mary pass. We were the week before. We’re like, oh, it’s still kind of covid. Do we even do this? We had 300 people show up. Some were still masked. The next year, we had 400 last year, we had almost 500 people. We brought in 66 investors from 10 states. We showcased 44 companies. Last year, we had screened through more than 100 companies to get to those 44 and a generous donor had said, Hey, I’d like a student competition on this, can we add a student element to it? And we said, well, sure, we don’t sleep, so we might as well add a student competition. So we opened it up to, the critical mass to help drive investors in. So we said, Okay, any student or company in DC, Maryland, or Virginia, you are welcome to come. We know from doing this event over, decades, she’s been at it for 20 years. I’ve been at it for 10 just in the investor event segment. We know we have to hold it close to a major airport. We know that envy, the National Venture Capital Association’s not that far away. We have lots of reasons that we can draw them in. So we hold it in Arlington for that reason, so we can get the investors this far. We’re just saying, come on, Virginia, come on, companies just come apply to pitch. Pitch it. Go in front of a bunch of investors. Also, the thing that’s important about this is we want local investors to network with national investors so that there are deep pockets for Series B. Series B was identified as a gap in funding so companies that could get Series A here, we don’t want a series, Series B investment to fly in, swoop them up and move them someplace else. So it’s also to help. We want the relationships to help anchor the companies here.
Lisa Calhoun
The venture is most certainly a global sport, and making sure that we’re all kind of playing on the same team and accelerating companies that valuations, we all agree, are part of the system right now that’s incredibly helpful and dynamic. So it sounds like it’s in your research and view and experience, but also we look forward to a startup getting through series A in the local environment.
Paula Sorrell
Yes, yeah, for the right companies. I mean, we still see it’s not across the board. We saw women backslide since Covid, and then the percentage of national capital or venture capital that they’ve been able to access. We’re trying to help reverse that trend and level the playing field on that front. So same with minorities, we want everyone to come. We work with a lot of veterans and a lot of veteran companies, and we love our veterans. So we want, we want to provide opportunities to everyone to come and access capital. So, October 23 and 24th 2024, in Arlington, for your calendar.
Lisa Calhoun
Awesome. Well, I will make sure to include the URL in the show notes. And you’ve been so generous with your time. You’re running so many exciting programs for startups in Virginia and surrounds DC and Maryland. Is there any last words that you’d like to say to our listeners, something they should look forward to maybe in the year ahead, or a social feed they should follow to stay in touch with everything George Mason is doing on innovation?
Paula Sorrell
Great, yes, we’re about to launch our new website. Of course, nobody’s ever website is where they want it to be, but we’re about to launch a new one. It’s enterprise.gmu.edu, which holds all the programs and then you can see what we’re up to in the regular feeds. And then acceleratedeals.org. Is the accelerate investor. You’re not. And if you’re an investor and you show up, we will probably put you to work to help judge and screen companies.
Lisa Calhoun
So very active investor experience. But you know what, Investors get bored, if it’s anything less than that, so that sounds like good fun. Paula, you’ve been amazing. Thank you for sharing the exciting programs you’re running, and I really appreciate your time.
Paula Sorrell
Thank you for doing this podcast and for shining a light on our favorite topic, which is startups.
Lisa Calhoun
You’re welcome!
This is the Virginia Startup Podcast, a resource for the founders and the investors who call Virginia home. The Virginia Startup Podcast is produced thanks to Valor Ventures. Valor leads seed rounds in transformational software companies headquartered in the South. If you’re a Virginia founder, please reach out to us at valor.vc. And if you’re raising your first pre-seed capital, consider applying for a free grant through our Startup Runway Foundation program. You can find out more at startuprunway.org.