Angel-backed Chattanooga Renaissance Fund launches

By Milt Capps Updated 5:45 p.m.
Published Tuesday, March 15, 2011 9:56 am

Angel-backed Chattanooga Renaissance Fund launches | Charlie Brock, Solidus, Angel investors, Chattanooga Renaissance Fund, CoLab, Sheldon Grizzle, David Belitz, Lupton, Stephen Culp, SmartFurniture, Roddy Bailey, Jack Studer, Miller Welborn, Miller & Martin, early stage, venture capital, entrepreneurs, Nashville Capital Network, Sid Chambless

Charlie Brock

The Chattanooga Renaissance Fund (CRF), an angel network, has been launched in that city with an initial $3 million, said general partner Charlie Brock, who is also a partner in FourBridges Capital Advisors, in a release this morning.

Belitz

David Belitz, a CRF general partner and CFO of The Lupton Co., said in the same release, “The Chattanooga area is steeped in the tradition of entrepreneurs who have been successful and then given back to the community. In many ways the Renaissance Fund is focused on re-establishing the entrepreneurial community that will carry forward the areaŹ¼s legacy of entrepreneurism which will continue the growth and development of our City.” 

Belitz and Lupton have ties to TNInvestco fund XMi High-Growth Development Fund in Nashville, according to VNC research and a Times Free Press story. Brock's FourBridges has also been heavily involved at times in the state TNInvestco process.

Announcement of CRF's founding seems to bring closer to completion Chattanooga's early-stage infrastructure. An incubation and tech-transfer network being developed by Nashville-based Solidus is, as previously reported by VNC (scroll down here), likely to partner via CoLab or other Chattanooga institutions within the Chattanooga entrepreneurial node.

Confirming another CRF ally based in Nashville, Nashville Capital Network Executive Director Sid Chambless told VNC this afternoon Brock is on the investment committee of NCN-allied Tennessee Angel Fund, which is a TNInvestco fund, and Chattanooga Renaissance Fund is a partner in that fund.

The angel group's six general partners will manage investments and the vetting of entrepreneurs' proposals, the group said. In addition to Brock and Belitz, CRF includes Stephen Culp, founder of Smart Furniture and Delegator Inc.; Roddy Bailey, partner at Miller & Martin; Jack Studer, a local venture capitalist affiliated, according to online information, with Rainclif Capital in Chattanooga; and, transportation executive Miller Welborn. VNC