Here's my train of thought about why Shotput, if successful, would help Atlanta:
- There is really very little seed stage funding in Atlanta (unlike the valley)
- The people who choose to startup in Atlanta AND need seed funding usually do so because they want to live in Atlanta for the foreseeable future (or have to, for some reason). If they didn't, they would just move to the valley since getting seed funding is so much easier there.
- Therefore, after seed funding, they are likely to stay in Atlanta (The round 1 funding scene in Atlanta is better than the seed funding scene..although not optimal)
- Hence, Atlanta will be one startup ahead because of Shotput Ventures
The gist is that if first time entrepreneurs were going to leave Atlanta after seed stage, they would likely have done so at seed stage since seed stage funding is so much harder here.
Unless they restrict applications to people from Atlanta, they'll get them from all over the country. Meanwhile, most groups from the Atlanta region won't apply only to Shotput, but also to the other seed firms.
So unless they restrict applications, there will end up being little local component, just as with every previous seed firm. Techstars intended to be the YC of Boulder. But IIRC only 4 of the 20 startups they've funded so far have been from Colorado. As far as I know, the same thing has happened to everyone after them as well.
The seed funding business isn't regional. People would like to believe it is, because it's 20x cheaper to run a YC than to do what you'd actually have to do to make startups stick to a particular city. But it isn't.
OK You've got a point. But let us say only 20% of the applicants stay in Atlanta. That's 4 more than otherwise would. Also, as I said before, once you pass the seed stage, it's easier (but not valley easy) to get the $1M you mention in "Can you Buy a Silicon Valley". It will help long term.
Basically, if we could at least get the ease of raising seed funding in Atlanta at parity with the ease of raising 1st round for a startup with revenues, it would be a significant win for us.
I do agree with you that if there were more VCs funding at the $1M level in Atlanta, we could keep all the Shotput applicants here and maybe a bunch of startups would move from across the country to Atlanta. But since politicians are unlikely to be as enlightened as making the $1B investment you mention in your essay would require, we'll have to attract private investors. If 1 of those 4 startups has a big successful exit, we'll probably get 1 more large fund to come to Atlanta.
But let us say only 20% of the applicants stay in Atlanta.
This assumption is off by an order of magnitude. YC funded 61 startups in Boston. Only 3 are still there, and 1 of those is talking about moving to SV. So the assumption should be more like 2-3%.
- There is really very little seed stage funding in Atlanta (unlike the valley)
- The people who choose to startup in Atlanta AND need seed funding usually do so because they want to live in Atlanta for the foreseeable future (or have to, for some reason). If they didn't, they would just move to the valley since getting seed funding is so much easier there.
- Therefore, after seed funding, they are likely to stay in Atlanta (The round 1 funding scene in Atlanta is better than the seed funding scene..although not optimal)
- Hence, Atlanta will be one startup ahead because of Shotput Ventures
The gist is that if first time entrepreneurs were going to leave Atlanta after seed stage, they would likely have done so at seed stage since seed stage funding is so much harder here.