Details from this competition cycle

On Tuesday, our judges met to review this cycle’s competition entrants. It was a very lively 4 hour discussion after roughly 2 weeks of review. Being in the room gives me hope for the creative and entrepreneurial spirit of start ups in Alabama.

To that, we felt it would be appropriate to share some data from this cycle. We see this as one snapshot of the entrepreneurial energy in Alabama. Here are some interesting statistics of the 25 entrants reviewed:

• 13 were seed stage and 12 were concept. This was a remarkably even split and speaks to the continued need to give room for concepts to come to life, especially through very early stage funding.
• 14 were formed as an LLC, 5 as either an S or C corp, and 6 were not incorporated at all. For early stage concepts, it makes sense not to waste time and money on incorporating.
• The majority of entrants heard about the competition through word of mouth – so if you know someone starting something, talk to them about Launchpad!
• For seed stage companies, average revenue generated in the last 12 months was ~$32,000; for concept, it was ~$7,500
• Lastly, of the 25 entrants, 4 were affiliated with a university in the state and 21 were not. This speaks to the significant entrepreneurial energy happening off campus as well as on.

There are a number of further conclusions we can draw from these statistics. We won’t go into those here, but welcome the conversation and engagement at the finale event on November 15th.