Building a business – even for the most innovative products and services – is hard. Building a venture-backed high-growth company from the ground up is even harder. But Indiana is full of eager entrepreneurs with innovative ideas who are ready to take on the challenge.  

That’s why TechPoint is working with some of its Central Indiana Corporate Partnership (CICP) initiatives and the nation’s venture capital community to supercharge programs and services that connect Hoosier founders with industry experts and investment professionals to help support innovative ideas. Most of the suite of services is available free-of-charge to Hoosier entrepreneurs and will grow as additional needs are identified.  

TechPoint President and CEO Ting Gootee said the collaborative effort is designed to help Hoosier entrepreneurs fully activate their startups and elevate them to scale-up status whether they are in the tech, agbiosciences, life sciences and health care, advanced manufacturing and logistics or other industry sectors.   

One of the new service offerings is Venture Support, which exists to connect Indiana entrepreneurs with a team of industry experts who serve as unbiased sounding boards and potential points of contact to talent, customers or capital.  

“Venture Support is really a ‘Dream Team’ of highly experienced people with access to and deep industry relationships with one of the largest networks of domain experts and individual and institutional investors across the region and country,” said Gootee, who led Elevate Ventures prior to joining TechPoint in May 2022. “All of us have separately and informally been helping Hoosier innovators for years. This brings that help together in a formal, more accessible and comprehensive way.”  

Crediting Hoosiers with an innate entrepreneurial spirit, CICP CEO David L. Johnson said there’s no limit to the innovations that will come from Indiana, but the often inaccessible and complex venture capital environment can keep some great products and services from getting to market.  

“The world is in the midst of a digital transformation where every company has a deep reliance on tech innovation to deliver their products and services, so it makes sense for TechPoint to help drive this suite of integrated supportive services, and to do so by meeting every Hoosier entrepreneur across sectors, genders, culture and color,” he said. “It’s directly on point with CICP’s mission and we expect great yields from these focused efforts.”  

The TechPoint suite of service offerings includes:  

  • Venture Support: a group of CICP initiative leaders with more than 300 years of combined experience in industry, operation and venture investing roles in the state’s advanced industry sectors: agbiosciences, life sciences, advanced manufacturing and logistics and technology. The team, at no cost to founders, will review entrepreneurs’ business pitch decks and provide feedback through the lens of industry and venture-ready perspectives. Such feedback sessions may lead to other points of industry and investor connections. 
  • Venture Connect: a revamped and renamed program (formerly known as VC Speed Dating), which previously focused only on tech entrepreneurs. The event will be open to any Indiana founder, regardless of sector. Companion to the day-long founder and funder interviews are VC Social events, which are informal networking sessions adjacent to Venture Connect.  
  • Pitch Network: a series of regular pitch events each year that will include startups presenting to angel investors, family offices, VC firms and other key networkers that can assist the companies with resources needed to scale their successful startups.  
  • VCI Marketplace: a free service that connects out-of-state investors and Hoosier taxpayers to leverage tax incentives related to Indiana venture capital investment.  
  • VC Reports: expanding on TechPoint’s long-followed VC quarterly and annual reports to give more in-depth analysis of Indiana’s VC landscape, trends and issues. 

Venture Support industry experts:  

·       Mitch Frazier, president and CEO, AgriNovus Indiana 

·       Geoff Zentz, sr. director of Innovation, AgriNovus Indiana 

·       Dan Dawes, sr. director of strategy & growth, AgriNovus Indiana 

·       Patty Martin, president and CEO, BioCrossroads  

·       Darshan Shah, SVP and chief data officer, BioCrossroads  

·       Jane Dunigan-Smith, SVP and chief strategy officer, BioCrossroads  

·       Frederick Cartwright, president and CEO, Conexus Indiana 

·       Mitch Landess, VP, innovation and digital transformation, Conexus Indiana 

·       Ryan Henderson, director of innovation and digital transformation, Conexus Indiana 

·       Ting Gootee, president and CEO, TechPoint  

·       Dennis Trinkle, EVP, talent programs and pathways, TechPoint 

·       Roger Shuman, senior relationship manager, TechPoint 

Entrepreneurs seeking help from the Venture Support initiative are asked to submit their pitch decks and/or executive summaries here. The team will connect within three business days to schedule a 45-minute virtual session with members of the team appropriate to the type of company. Within 24 hours of the briefing, the TechPoint team will send a recap of meeting feedback and any related action items such as introductions and/or invitations to upcoming events.