Local government and tech leaders launched a partnership today with one goal in mind: ensuring businesses are equipped with the knowledge and tools they'll need in a post-pandemic world.
The Plug and Play Tech Center, an early stage investor and accelerator program based in Silicon Valley, is partnering with Carolina Fintech Hub and The City of Charlotte to create an acceleration series focused on Business to Business needs.
The accelerator kicked off on Thursday with a virtual event featuring Charlotte City councilor and founder of Carolina Fintech Tariq Bokhari, Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles, and Plug and Play CEO Saeed Amidi, as well as a guest panel, startup presentations and a Q&A session.
Plug and Play is known for its investments in companies like PayPal, Dropbox and LendingClub.
Bokhari said the inaugural event was meant to begin a community-wide dialogue surrounding topics like digitizing on-boarding and rethinking client interactions in the city's main industry-drivers: banking, manufacturing, retail and energy.
"This was part of a wholistic strategy to get to the heart of how Charlotte and our region can be creative and innovative and do things that others aren’t doing right now that will enable us to recover, post-Covid, and bring our economy back to some state of a new normal," he said.
The accelerator was inspired by having experienced the 2008 financial crisis, Bokhari said.
"Then it was the financial system that stalled, it was the engine," he said. "It’s the exact opposite right now. We broke that down and analyzed it and realized that now it's the fuel, the workforce and businesses."
Following today's event will be a series of "Deal Days," where Bokhari said accelerator partners will go inside companies on an individual basis, present demos and bring them options to partner with local innovators.
The next phases of the acceleration series, he said, will focus on the healthcare sector and education.
Bokhari is also working on a B2C accelerator with Techstars that will focus on small business recovery. The accelerator, while not finalized, is slated to have $500,000 in federal grant money aimed at helping companies retool in a changed economy. The companies chosen will work with the city, the North Carolina General Assembly, Carolina Fintech Hub and Techstars.
"They see value in Charlotte being able to get out in front of this ... They see potential for the other counties in our state," he said. "I think that shows this is a game-changing concept."
