It’s easy for small business owners to dream big about the future of their companies, but actually bringing those visions to life can be challenging when it comes to finding investors and mentors. Thankfully, Huntsville is no ordinary city for small businesses when it comes to meeting those needs.

Catalyst Center for Business & Entrepreneurship and the UAH Small Business Development Center/Procurement Technical Assistance Center are both highly valuable and free-to-use resources for local entrepreneurs. For small businesses that seek to grow quickly, there’s an additional resource available: gener8tor.

Headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin, gener8tor offers programming in over 30 locations across the United States. It launched in Huntsville in spring 2021 and has already supported several local companies, including Zaden Technologies, Avilution, Van Heron Labs, Engenix, and Acclinate.

While gener8tor, Catalyst, and the UAH SBDC/PTAC generally work with similar partners across their markets, they aren’t necessarily competitors–the SBDC provides mentors and speakers for gener8tor’s programs, and gBETA program director Hua Wang described Hilary Claybourne of the SBDC as a ‘rock star mentor.’ Wang added that the Catalyst Center is a great source for referring startups to gBETA.

gener8tor’s Senior Managing Director of Investment Accelerators Hayley Medved Kendrick

Hayley Medved Kendrick, Senior Managing Director of Investment Accelerators, stated that gener8tor distinguishes itself from the other organizations in that it focuses specifically on high growth startups.

“A lot of the issues that a local based, maybe service or retail type business have, are different from those that want to raise venture capital or potentially grow to an IPO type of exit, so we specialize in that,” she explained.

In addition, gener8tor offers concierge programming, taking a one-on-one approach with companies to focus on their specific needs and goals by leveraging its national network to match them with the partners best suited to helping them meet their goals.

Why Huntsville? According to Kendrick, there are a number of things that make the city attractive to a lot of companies.

“Really, the density of the talent sets North Alabama apart from a lot of markets that we work in. It’s that high-skilled engineering talent and the opportunity to be engaged in early growth of a startup ecosystem.”

“We’re specifically focused on ecosystems that tend to have less access to capital than the big markets. So we’re not in San Francisco, New York, [and] Boston intentionally. Huntsville really fits the model of where we have had success…there’s a ton of opportunities and resources but not as much investment and so we’re trying to change that.”

RCP Properties and MidCity Accelerator Foundation brought gener8tor in to grow Huntsville’s startup ecosystem. In addition, they will soon be launching the first AgTech program with HudsonAlpha.

The company is currently recruiting for three accelerator programs in Huntsville. The first, gener8tor Huntsville, is a 12-week investment-for-equity accelerator that will provide a concierge, mentorship-driven experience for six high-growth startups across all industries and business models along with up to $100K in funding in exchange for 6% common stock equity.

HudsonAlpha AgTech will invest $100K in five of the best and brightest startups tackling the challenges of sustainably feeding and powering a growing planet. Applications for this program are welcome from startups headquartered anywhere in the world and innovating in any area of agriculture. This program does not take a predetermined amount of equity upfront.

These two programs kick off September 8, 2022 and the deadline for entry is July 17.

The third program, gBETA Huntsville, is a free, seven-week accelerator for early-stage companies with local roots. Each program is capped at five teams and provides individualized coaching and mentorship on company growth and investor readiness. It features investor and accelerator pitches; deals and perks from vendors like IBM Cloud, Rackspace, Amazon, Paypal, Zendesk, Hubspot, and Microsoft; weekly “Lunch and Learns” and “Mentor Swarms;” and ongoing post-program support. The deadline for this program is August 15 and the program kicks off September 2, 2022.

Hua Wang runs gBETA for Huntsville and Muscle Shoals. She noted that she had never been to Alabama prior to starting work on gener8tor and that she came with preconceived notions of what it was going to be like here.

“I showed up and just fell in love with the founders. They’re just like some of the most humble, talented, smart people and they’re so generous with their time, like, it’s such a supportive community. I’ve just been blown away.”

“There are so many PhDs, scientists, engineers, and we unlock the business knowledge to help them with their business, you know, how to raise capital, how to write the executive summary, how to speak in business language,” Wang explained.

Avilution founder Mark Spencer, a member of the inaugural group of Huntsville entrepreneurs to go through the gBETA Huntsville program, continues to take value from his experience in the program.

“Although Avilution is my second business, having already started Digium, I found participating in the gener8tor program extremely helpful even long after the program ended. The relationships I made through the program have been sustained even to this day,” Spencer said.

Images provided by gener8tor.