Venture Atlanta 2024 Conference Recap

ATLANTA, GA | October 15, 2024

The Ballast Rock Asset Management and Acronym Venture Capital teams recently attended the Venture Atlanta 2024 conference. With more than 1,500 investors, entrepreneurs, and service providers in attendance, Venture Atlanta remains the premier venture summit for emerging tech in the Southeast.

The team didn’t waste any time in seeking out potential investments for both the BR AVC Early-Stage Fund and the BR AVC Growth Fund. But the conference was also an opportunity to catch up with other leading venture capital firms, learn about upcoming deal flow, and generally get perspective on the current venture landscape.

Please see below for a summary of key takeaways from the conference:

• Venture capital activity, on both a deal count and invested capital basis, is trending upward, showing signs of recovery from a slow 2023.
• Investors are increasingly prepared to write checks into reasonably priced rounds with a firm valuation, marking a shift away from flat rounds that featured convertible notes and SAFEs which effectively delayed resetting valuations.
• Investors are more collaborative than ever, and we continue to see other venture capital firms (“VCs”) actively looking to bring additional investors into deals and leverage relationships for new deal flow.
• This year saw record-breaking attendance from investors as well as a record-breaking number of founder applications, demonstrating both a strong appetite for new investments and a significant need for startup capital.
• Attendance from investor service providers like lawyers, accountants, and lenders was also up, as they looked to differentiate themselves and win business by opening their rolodexes to aid investors and founders.
• The ‘virtual’ era of networking is behind us. Investors and founders alike are looking to fully return to in-person meetings to connect, build relationships, and raise capital.
• Generative AI continued to dominate the conversation with most, if not all, startups talking about incorporating AI into their products in some form. However, it was noteworthy that very few founders could pinpoint exactly how this new AI implementation would generate additional revenue.

The team left the conference with a refreshed market perspective, an expanded network of investors, service providers and referral sources and, most importantly, several exciting new prospective companies for both the BR AVC Early Stage and BR AVC Growth funds to diligence for potential investment.

“Our team has diligently been reviewing and executing deals since our first close in early 2023 and the fund has now made eight portfolio company investments. We are extremely conservative in our deal review process and will only ever consider investing in a company if we have a high degree of confidence that it is going to clear our stringent investment objectives.”

“We are very excited about the opportunities the current challenging venture capital environment will present for the BR AVC Growth Fund to deploy capital. Having already invested in eight great portfolio companies, the fund will continue to focus on investing in well-run companies with strong fundamentals, solid unit economics, a good growth story and a clear path to profitability.”

About Ballast Rock Group

Ballast Rock Group is an integrated investment management company specializing in delivering risk-adjusted returns, accurate, and timely advice, high quality frequent reporting, and direct access to management. Ballast Rock Group operates Ballast Rock Asset Management, Ballast Rock Private Wealth, and Ballast Rock Capital. Ballast Rock Asset Management comprises Ballast Rock Real Estate, which includes the firm’s Sunbelt multifamily real estate funds, and Ballast Rock Ventures, comprising venture capital and private equity teams. Ballast Rock Private Wealth is a registered investment advisor, with a focus on alternative strategies. Ballast Rock Capital is awaiting approval to become a FINRA-registered broker-dealer. Ballast Rock is committed to being a driver of positive change. The diversity of our team members brings valuable new perspectives to our industry for the benefit of our stakeholders and the broader community.

About Acronym Venture Capital