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Start me up …

You can start something here. Just ask the folks who moved to Chattanooga from Hershey, Pennsylvania; Brooklyn, New York; Boston; and Auburn, Alabama. We welcome and celebrate our innovators like the rock stars they are.

Ken McElrath launched SKUID in 2013 because he thought enterprise software should stop forcing people to act like machines. Now, more than 5 million users in 32 countries count on SKUID for its simple but incredibly robust cloud front-end design-and-deploy platform.

Mickey Cloud moved here from Brooklyn after we invited VaynerMedia staff to ditch New York for a weekend. We flipped the typical city tour and turned it into a four-hour scavenger hunt contest – giving out 1 million points for those brave enough to dip into the springtime waters of the Tennessee River.

Bellhops, a startup founded in Chattanooga, has expanded to 50 states
Bellhops, a startup founded in Chattanooga, has expanded to 50 states

Or, ask a Chattanooga original. When AOL cofounder Steve Case rolled his big ruby red VC bus into Chattanooga, Felicia Jackson was one of 10 who rocked the stage, pitching her lifesaving how-to product - CPRWrap – to the Rise of the Rest team. (Chattanooga was one of the few mid-sized cities to make the rolling pitch tour.)

We throw parades for our entrepreneurs (literally) and are building an amazing ecosystem including:

  • A venture fund investing exclusively in female-led startups
  • The largest incubator in the state
  • A $20 million logistics-tech venture fund (and we’re raising money right now for a $25-50 million fund)
  • An accelerator listed as one of the best in the country
  • An innovation center focused on digital equity
Venture-Capital-Infographic
Chattanooga Whiskey distillery
Chattanooga Whiskey distillery