As the year draws to a close, it’s dizzying to think of what a phenomenal year 2022 was for ATDC. I look back on the year with a lot of pride for what we and our portfolio companies have accomplished this year. Official statistics will come in the new year, but here are a few highlights I can report today:

We welcomed 46 new companies into the ATDC portfolio — all full-time founders with scaling businesses and tackling big problems in their industries. This represents a new high watermark for new companies in one year and represents the strength of the startup ecosystem in Georgia.

We welcomed four new major corporate sponsors in Home Depot, Amazon Robotics, Visa, and Norfolk Southern. Their contributions help us support and stand up four new verticals which represent some of the fastest growing sectors in IT: Supply Chain Tech, Advanced Robotics, FinTech, and Sustainability, respectively. The addition of these four brings our total vertical focus areas to seven, including Advanced Manufacturing, HealthTech, and 5G.

We opened three new statewide offices in Macon, Columbus, and Albany. That brings our statewide presence via our ATDC @ program to six offices all working to further Georgia’s technology startup support and ecosystem building infrastructure. Likewise, we expanded our staff with 13 new hires — bringing our team to 23 to better support our portfolio companies and statewide needs.

We have been developing a new startup curriculum this year that we are excited to launch in January. Register on our website at atdc.org under the “Events” tab.

We have continued work on our grant-funded Center for MedTech Excellence in collaboration with the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership and Global Center for Medical Innovation to provide targeted curriculum and support for medical device companies. Companies engaging in the Center have already raised $3.4 million in private investment this year. You can learn more by visiting medtech.gatech.edu.

We graduated 13 companies from the ATDC portfolio whose statistical success rate as an ATDC graduate makes them 90% likely to survive five years out.

We received a $1 million grant award from the Georgia AIM initiative to support advanced manufacturing cohort’s growth and commercialization efforts.

We facilitated, supported, and marveled at our active portfolio of companies which as a group, raised more than $114.5 million in capital in 2022 alone to grow their businesses.

Our ATDC Educate program has changed and underwent an overhaul to ensure that we continue to deliver world-class programming and content to support our growing ecosystem of entrepreneurs.

Finally, if you know me, you know I like to say, “it’s engineers and smart founders who have the potential to solve complex, existential challenges and make a material impact on society.”  Know that for ATDC in 2022, we did our part to facilitate those outcomes and plan to continue to build on that momentum in 2023.

Wishing you all the best for a Happy Holiday Season and a prosperous and healthy New Year,