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Atlanta has served as fertile ground for both enterprise teams and early-stage founders over the years. From Downtown to Midtown to Sandy Springs, Metro Atlanta’s business districts are filled with both Fortune 500 headquarters and startup offices poised for growth.
But how do startups and large corporations actually meet each other?
Traditionally, that hasn’t been an easy introduction. But landing those intros can be crucial for any promising B2B company.
Getting in front of corporations is top of mind for the teams behind eight startups recently selected to join Engage. The eight selected startups just started their new 10-week journey to scale their enterprise-level technologies and learn the intricacies of working with large corporations.
Those in the Atlanta startup community are likely familiar with the Engage program, which is part of Tech Square Ventures. Far from being a traditional business accelerator, Engage brings Atlanta’s preeminent enterprises together in one multi-corporate venture capital fund. That gives large corporate partners – industry giants like Chick-Fil-A, Delta, Coca-Cola, The Home Depot, Georgia Pacific, Inspire, and Cox Enterprises, to name a few – direct access to the up-and-coming B2B startups addressing their most pressing business challenges.
Get To Know The Engage Process
“We’re in the relationship business,” Engage’s Bill Nussey told Hypepotamus. “I think part of what we do at Engage is teach startups how to speak the corporate language. It’s getting [startups] to understand the unique role, constraints, and opportunities that exist in a corporation. But it goes both ways. Many large corporates have no idea what flexibility and constraints startups have. So we act as that middle person, both translating the value and translating expectations.”
Nussey added that he’s “heard time and time again from past founders that [they] completely redid their go-to-market not just for…
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