SC-based venture capital firm surpasses $100 million invested

Thanks, Mike.

Appreciate it.

So it's been a while since we've talked to you.

For our listeners not familiar with Venture South, tell us what it is that you guys are doing.

We've been around since 2008.

We are an early stage investment firm based in Greenville.

Recently had some pretty good news about kind of some milestones that we've passed that at the beginning we didn't quite think were possible.

So we're really proud of it.

But

we kind of operate

as a large investor syndicate, as well as a family of funds that invest alongside the active angel investors as part of the network.

All right.

So walk us through the mechanics of what happens inside the organization.

Yeah, sure.

So we look at about 20 or 30 deals every month, kind of based all over the Southeast.

The process starts with a company will enter into the pipeline with us.

We'll take a look internally, make sure it kind of fits the buy box, if you will, of what we're looking to invest in.

And then our staff will narrow that down to a handful of companies that we then bring through a formal screening process that happens every month.

We'll take four or five companies.

We will invite our investor membership base to hop on a Zoom call once a month.

And we will allow the companies to make a presentation.

You know, it's usually about 10 or 15 minute pitch followed by 10 or 15 minutes of Q&A.

And then we ask the members to vote on which company they want to see move into a formal due diligence process.

So we'll take the top vote getter.

We'll put together a diligence team comprised of any of our members that want to participate in our due diligence process.