Triangle entrepreneurs will soon receive a boost from the best in the business.
The Blackstone Group, one of the country’s largest investment firms, announced Monday that it will partner with universities in the Triangle area to create a network aimed at mentoring local start-ups and linking business ventures to academic research.
The Blackstone Charitable Foundation will contribute $3.6 million to develop a network which will identify and mentor start-ups in the Triangle with promising business models and a potential for high growth. This initiative is part of a partnership between The Blackstone Entrepreneurship Initiative—a program the group announced in 2010—and the White House’s national entrepreneurship program, “Startup America,” launched in 2011.
CEO Stephen Schwarzman addressed an audience of local businesspeople and public officials at the American Tobacco Campus in downtown Durham Monday morning. He announced that the firm will partner with Duke, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina State University and North Carolina Central University to connect researchers and entrepreneurs.
The five-year initiative will involve matching 15 local “master entrepreneurs” with 30 major start-up ventures in the Triangle each year, Schwarzman said. According to Blackstone’s website, ideal start-up candidates are those in the early stages of fundraising, with the potential to create approximately $40 million in revenue and become profitable within 10 years. Schwarzman added that he predicts the network will double the number of startups in the region, attract more than $800 million in capital and generate more than 17,000 jobs and $4 billion in business revenue.
“This unprecedented collaboration between academic, public and private sector leaders makes a very serious statement about the commitment of North Carolina to fostering economic growth and competitiveness,” he said.
Schwarzman, also the chair and co-founder of the multi-billion dollar private equity and asset management firm, said this initiative will focus on job creation and economic growth. He added that the firm as a whole has also shifted its focus to job growth following the economic downturn and rise in unemployment.
“We felt that creating jobs is something that’s more than economical,” he said. “It affects people emotionally and psychologically and changes the focus of their lives and their children’s lives.”
The three public university chancellors in attendance—NCCU’s Charlie Nelms, N.C. State’s Randy Woodson and UNC’s Holden Thorp—joined President Richard Brodhead in praising the partnership. Other speakers at the event included Gov. Bev Perdue; U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan; U.S. Representative Brad Miller; and Ginger Lew, senior adviser to the White House National Economic Council.
Perdue emphasized the importance of job creation as a key component of her economic agenda, citing a recent proposed tax credit for small businesses. She also noted her implementation of an innovation council charged with providing policy recommendations to encourage entrepreneurship.
“When it comes to putting people to work in our state, the reputation and the capacity of the Triangle remains one of the biggest and best weapons in our arsenal,” she said. “If you read the history of North Carolina... the seeds that have dropped from the branches of our university system... have grown into game-changing oaks for our industry.”
Perdue added that Blackstone’s contribution will help convert the research and development occurring at universities into new avenues for economic growth.
Lew said the Blackstone Entrepreneurs Network was a top priority for President Barack Obama as part of his administration’s Startup America Initiative, a campaign launched in January 2011to foster small business innovation.
“[Obama] issued a call to action... challenging leaders of companies, universities and foundations to dramatically accelerate the success of America’s high growth entrepreneurs,” she said. “I hope others take a close look at this [Triangle] model and think about how best to scale it to other regions... that are ripe for innovation.”
Brodhead said local universities will be key to the Triangle’s continued economic growth, and added that this partnership has been nearly a year in the making.
“People nowadays don’t want to go to work for someone else—they’d rather create the enterprise and have someone come work for them,” he said. “But people need help to become successful entrepreneurs... what’s so brilliant about the Blackstone concept is supplying the mentors to give help at the stage [entrepreneurs] need it.”
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