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Back to Newsletter By Scott Meacham ACT Tulsa is very intentional about creating an on-ramp to trust with founders who are Black and Brown. ACT Tulsa, the six-month cohort-driven accelerator program aimed at cultivating underestimated founders located in Tulsa and beyond, is up and running with its inaugural cohort of nine startup companies. The 17Read more

By Scott Meacham Oklahoma’s path of innovation is built upon the hereditary DNA of past entrepreneurs. Of the nearly 3 billion base pairs in the human genome, about 99 percent of them are the same in every human being — however, it is the sequence of these DNA pairs that makes each of us whoRead more

By Scott Meacham Since its creation in the late 1990s, i2E has had an exponential impact upon the state’s startup economy. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? This philosophical trope has been used from ancient times on down as a frame to debate cause and effect. In high tech entrepreneurship and venture capital,Read more

By Scott Meacham It is sometimes remarkable the lessons about entrepreneurship that we can learn from reading about the life of just one person. Wiley Post is such a man. Wiley Post offers lessons. Wiley Post was a man of curiosity and adventure born into a working family of cotton farmers who bounced around TexasRead more

By Scott Meacham Everything in life is cyclical. As terrible as 2020 has been for so many, the human spirit is amazing. Over the last month, as people have begun receiving vaccines that were developed in less than a year, I sense a bit of restored optimism. Who isn’t hoping (and expecting) that 2021 willRead more

By Scott Meacham Entrepreneurship is hard. Most everything about building a new company is a heavy lift. Are there shout-from-the-mountain-tops moments? Most certainly. When the first prototype works as designed. When the first customer contract is signed. When a talent critical hire says yes and joins the team. And when the company receives the fundingRead more

By Scott Meacham The coronavirus pandemic has given whole segments of the economy the opportunity, and yes, even the permission, to do things differently. It is a generational opportunity for entrepreneurs who want to solve big problems for important industries. Over the last few weeks, I have focused on macro implications of the pandemic—entrepreneurial pivots,Read more

By Scott Meacham When people ask me the secret to building a scalable and successful high-growth startup, I give them a one-word answer. Talent. Entrepreneurship, just like every other endeavor in life depends on people. Is there a certain type of wiring that a high-tech entrepreneur needs? Yes. Curiosity, boundless energy, stubborn determination, and theRead more

i2E, Inc. had a record-breaking number of investments in FY2020 with $12.89M in closed investments across its 4 venture funds and concept fund. In total, 19 Oklahoma companies received financing and attracted an additional $16.34M from private investors, for a total of $29.3M invested in Oklahoma-based companies. i2E Management Company Inc. (iMCI ), i2E’s investmentRead more

By Scott Meacham It’s official. The country is in a recession. Of course, we didn’t need the recent announcement by the National Bureau of Economic Research to tell us that. Given its unusualness, our hope is that we have nearly bottomed out from the pandemic free-fall and that economic recovery will come quickly. However, weRead more

By Scott Meacham “Necessity is the mother of invention.” This saying is commonly attributed to the Greek philosopher Plato. After multiple translations from ancient Greek over more than 2000 years, it is no surprise that scholars debate the exact wording that Plato used in The Republic, but regardless his observation is spot on: When theRead more

By PAULA BURKES Copyright 2020, The Oklahoman Stacey Brandhorst directs business development for i2E, a nonprofit that helps entrepreneurs commercialize technologies, launch and grow new businesses and access capital. Question: You recently launched the 30th cohort of i2E’s e3 program (formerly Venture Assessment Program) with five new Oklahoma ventures as an online virtual class, usingRead more

By Scott Meacham We are in unprecedented times. Seemingly overnight, the world has changed, possibly forever. We are dealing with a pandemic disease that has no vaccine or cure. The stock market has lost a third of its value. People are being furloughed and laid off. Many hourly workers can’t pay for their groceries, rentRead more

By Scott Meacham Mentoring is one of the most valuable venture services i2E provides to Oklahoma’s innovators and entrepreneurs. Our mentoring covers a wide range of topics and situations based on the leadership team’s experience, the stage of the startup, and the market the company is working to serve. We are focused when we mentor.Read more

August 28, 2019 i2E, Inc. and the Choctaw Nation provide intensive, one-day business assessment class to help small businesses validate concepts, expand market, capture new revenues Contact: Darcy Wilborn, (405) 813-2424 contact@growok.org GrowOK, a free one-day venture assessment workshop designed to help rural and tribal entrepreneurs understand the markets they serve is returning to DurantRead more

By Scott Meacham Copyright © 2019, The Oklahoman For high-growth startups and their early stage investors, there are two primary paths to longevity and returns—an initial public offering (IPO) or a merger/acquisition by another (typically larger) company. MoneyTree reports that in 2018, 86 venture-backed firms held IPOs and 689 venture-backed firms achieved exits via mergerRead more

By Scott Meacham Copyright © 2019, The Oklahoman When I served as state treasurer, I learned first-hand that the more individuals and institutions feel ownership in growing Oklahoma’s economy, the better our state’s economic results will be. Now that I’ve been working in the innovation economy for several years, I’ve relearned that same lesson. ForRead more

By Scott Meacham Copyright © 2019, The Oklahoman After six years of working directly with Oklahoma’s entrepreneurs and startups, I fully understand just how much of a race starting up a company really is — a race against time, against competitors and, most of all, a race against the status quo. The need for speedRead more

By Scott Meacham Copyright © 2019, The Oklahoman I set a goal for this summer’s series of columns to reflect on and write about my lessons-learned during my past six years of immersion in entrepreneurship. Our focus at i2E is on high-growth technology or life sciences businesses, but startups of every stripe are vital toRead more

By Scott Meacham Copyright © 2018, The Oklahoman Startup companies are like snowflakes — no two are exactly alike. Uniqueness, after all, is a vital part of every new company’s secret sauce. The most successful startups always break new ground. They do original things in original ways. They invent new materials (nanoparticles anyone?), new systemsRead more