Silicon Valley VCs Go South to Show They’re Not Out of Touch
Investors took a bus tour through North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia to learn. Many of their hosts were hoping for direct investment.
Source: Xuezhao Lan
A group of venture capitalists sat at the front of the lecture hall, unsure of what to say. They had heard countless pitches before, but none quite like this.
The stale classroom with yellow paint on the cinderblock walls and tan carpeting was a world away from their glossy offices in the San Francisco Bay area and New York City. Freight trains roared on a track nearby, drowning out some of the presenters. They were at South Carolina State University, a historically black college in Orangeburg, South Carolina, a city beset by poverty for more than a generation. A local delegation led by Mayor Michael C. Butler sat on stage for the investors -- all eager for their dozen or so guests to inject money into their small city.