Last week, LaunchTN hosted its 10th annual 3686 festival in Nashville, showcasing Tennessee entrepreneurship at its finest.
The fest was at Wildhorse Saloon and One Fourteen, with additional events taking place at Bearded Iris Brewing, SOHO House, Frist Art Museum and 1 Hotel.
3686 brought together over 840 founders and investors from across the Southeast, and attendees walked away with meaningful insights and intentional connections to aid in the growth of their businesses.
Over a span of three days, 3686 featured an exposition of sessions, one-on-one investor meetings, a pitch competition, networking lunches, happy hours, a fireside chat and partner popup events around Nashville.
Sixty speakers sat on panels ranging in topics from brand longevity to fintech, sharing their expertise and insights. The lineup included a special live recording of the podcast “You Might Be Right,” which is hosted by former Govs. Phil Bredesen and Bill Haslam.
The 3-day festival featured a luncheon with Evan Goldberg, co-founder of the first cloud computing company – NetSuite – which was acquired by Oracle in 2016 for billions. Evan spoke with LaunchTN board member Winston F. Justice, who is an investment advisor at Bernstein and former NFL player. The duo discussed everything from Goldberg’s entrepreneurial journey to tech trends.
Headshots
The second floor of the Wildhorse was the Insperity Work Lounge, including a headshot station, where attendees could get free photos.
Did you get your headshot taken at 3686? You can view the gallery here.
Startup Pitch Competition hosted by InvestTN
Five startups from across the state pitched last week at the 10th annual 3686 Entrepreneurship Festival’s Startup Pitch Competition, hosted by InvestTN.
“This year’s lineup of startups demonstrated Tennessee’s growing and highly dynamic startup ecosystem,” said Monique Villa, Chief Investment Officer at LaunchTN managing the new $70M InvestTN fund. “From medical devices to a new social app to vertical software, Tennessee is seeing growth across industries.”
All-star judges from across the U.S. voted for 1st place and runner-up winners of the Startup Pitch Competition, assessing startups based on key components of their presentation. This year’s judges include Ansley Carlisle (Mark Cuban Companies), Christina Sass (Dive In), Hunter Hillenmeyer (Company Ventures) and Michael Li (NEA).
Nashville-based VetVerifi took home 1st-place bragging rights, while Memphis-based SweetBio was named a runner up.
Thank you
LaunchTN would like to thank our year long supporters Pinnacle Financial Partners and Vanderbilt University and our 3686 sponsors Amazon, Oracle NetSuite, Nelson Mullins, the Wond’ry, GrowthX, Compass East, Jumpstart Foundry, Third Prime, Dell for Startups, JP Morgan Chase & Co., Insperity, EO Nashville, Lightning 100, Pilgrimage, Hypepotamus, EcoMap Technologies and Gray Line for their support of the event.
Next year
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