Innova Memphis

Innova’s mission is to enable and create high-growth companies and jobs in the healthcare, technology and AgTech fields by providing seed capital and experienced hands-on mentorship and leadership. We invest in early-stage, high-growth companies that have the potential to grow into significant economic contributors. Our focus is on companies with strong intellectual property or other competitive advantages in the Biosciences, Technology and AgTech fields. Innova’s goal is to nurture the growth of high technology and entrepreneurial efforts that will result in significant job creation, economic growth, and competitiveness. Innova’s investment strategy was partially shaped by a change in the venture industry as a whole. Increasingly, traditional venture capital companies focus less on true early-stage investing as the financial risk/reward metrics have shifted in favor of later-stage investing. This change in the industry has left a “funding gap” that has made it extremely difficult for startups in their formative stages to have access to venture capital. This lack of seed capital poses a long-term threat to our innovation-based economy and our country’s future competitiveness as a whole. We know how to coach and build new companies, which is key to this unique venture capital segment. In addition, Innova has developed a strong pipeline of potential early-stage investment opportunities that align with regional industry clusters and economic development priorities, as well as a pool of entrepreneurs and executives to compliment early-stage inventors and entrepreneurs. Starting a company from scratch is hard, but Innova’s hands-on approach greatly increases the likelihood of long-term commercial success.