The City of Dunwoody’s Economic Development Department is working to build a thriving environment for entrepreneurship and innovation in Dunwoody.

Partnership with Access Georgia Foundation 

The City of Dunwoody is partnering with Access to increase support and provide resources for small businesses and entrepreneurs. The move is an important part of the City’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation Strategy, which was developed to adapt to changes in the workforce and office market coming out of COVID.

“Access has a strong track record of creating tangible results through mentorships, investments, and connections,” said Dunwoody Economic Development Director Michael Starling. “We’ll work together to create a thriving environment for entrepreneurship and innovation.”

Access Georgia Foundation is a nonprofit organization headquartered in Dunwoody that provides education, mentoring, and capital for unserved and underserved entrepreneurs. The Foundation’s long-running Founders Cohort program welcomes early-stage entrepreneurs across Georgia seeking angel investments to grow their ventures.  

Since its start in 2020, the program has invested $2 million in 14 companies and provided more than 1,200 hours of mentoring. With Dunwoody as a partner, the Foundation will expand its offerings to support small businesses, growth-stage businesses, and solo entrepreneurs with resources such as business workshops, mentoring, and networking opportunities to help them grow. Access also plans to support individuals exploring entrepreneurship and considering starting a business.

“This partnership will allow us to create more educational and mentoring programs, investment opportunities, and networking events for small business owners, entrepreneurs, and even those considering starting their own business,” said Devika Rao, a Dunwoody resident and executive committee member with Access Georgia Foundation. “Supporting founders and business leaders in every phase of business, from ideation to scaling to growth, is how we build a robust ecosystem.”

Entrepreneurship/Innovation Strategy

The City of Dunwoody engaged Boyette Strategic Advisors to develop a three-year entrepreneurship/innovation strategy for the city. The process included gathering input from the core team through a Discovery Session. The process also included a review of other similar or aspirational cities that had developed a successful entrepreneurship/innovation ecosystem.

READ: Dunwoody Entrepreneurship Innovation Strategy Draft - January 2022

Partnership with TiE Atlanta

Dunwoody-based TiE Atlanta is a top-five chapter of TiE Global, an international organization that fosters entrepreneurship through mentoring, networking, and funding. The Atlanta chapter provides mentoring, networking, and capital to emerging and established entrepreneurs in any stage, in any industry.

The expanded partnership includes these initiatives:

• Monthly meetings: TiE Atlanta Monthly Meetings bring together entrepreneurs, investors, business leaders, corporate partners, sponsors and Atlanta’s entrepreneurial community to meet, network, and learn from each other on topics that are important to entrepreneurs, founders, and small business leaders. Topics include raising capital, scaling and building the right team, mergers and acquisitions, investing, and more. The meetings are held once a month with a headliner and panel format followed by networking.

• TiECON Atlanta - Dunwoody has partnered on the TiECon Atlanta Annual Conference in the past.  The annual conference for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs, is the signature event that brings together business leaders, investors, and the entrepreneurial community from Atlanta and the Southeast for a one-day conference that has defined tracks focused on entrepreneurship, industry trends, angel investments and more. Distinguished keynote speakers have included founders of Kabbage, Kathryn Petralia and Rob Frohwein; Tim Sheehan, founder of Greenlight; David Cummings, founder of Atlanta Tech Village; Bob Nardelli, former CEO of The Home Depot.  The 2024 TiECON will be held on September 19th at the Georgia Aquarium.