Welcome to Five & Thrive: a weekly podcast highlighting the Southeast’s most interesting news, entrepreneurs, and information of the week, all under 5 minutes.

My name is Jon Birdsong and I’m with Atlanta Ventures.

Companies Worth Applying To:

A new number 1 spot has been taken on the leaderboard outside of the Atlanta Tech Village by PrizePicks. CEO, Adam Wexler, who we did a longer form interview on the Atlanta Story, set the goal to gain the top spot on the leaderboard years ago and achieved it this month as he and the PrizePicks team now are the largest tenant in the ATV. That will be a graduation party you don’t want to miss when the time comes. Wexler recently shared he is looking for a Director of Social Media, a role near and dear to his heart based off his prior entrepreneurial experience. PrizePicks is the largest independently owned Daily Fantasy Sports platform in North America centered around real-money over/under predictions. If you live, breathe, eat, and sleep sports, this is the company for you. They are hiring for several roles.  

Product of the Week:  

This product of the week is out of Nashville led by Raven Hernandez and is called EarthRides which is a ridesharing app made up exclusively of Teslas. Right now, the service is available in Nashville and Austin with major plans to expand in other cities. 228 reviews on the Apple Store with an average 4.8 stars demonstrates there are plenty of happy customers who want a quiet, clean ride while being eco-friendly.

Intern Philosophy of the Week:

The simple philosophy is to find a Slack channel to revolve around. This summer, our interns, Evie and James, who you may have seen on our Instagram stories, are putting in phenomenal work helping us not only build this podcast but also make so much of our marketing efforts come to life – and it really got me thinking about how interns today can become a natural extension of organization regardless of existing societal structures. Let me explain: last summer we had Nic Terwindt in the office and on Slack. He did such a great job, all throughout his senior year, he stayed in the Atlanta Ventures Slack and continued helping. After graduating in May, he had several offers from local companies seeking his full time employment including Grayscale where he landed. In the world of remote work and centralized Slack communication the artificial barriers of traditional interns can be overcome, demonstrated by Nic and the growing group of impressive interns. Careers can start earlier than expected with the help of technology. If you are a parent listening and wondering how your son or daughter can get an internship in technology, have them find a Slack channel they can revolve around similar to the ways our marketing interns do today.  

Raise a Glass:

There are two companies worth mentioning this week who raised rounds in the Southeast. The first was announced out of Charlotte and it is called CivicEye. They raised $12.4M from Cercano Management which is a spin out from Paul Allen - the late Co-Founder of Microsoft’s - Venture group he started in 2003. CivicEye is the platform for public safety that brings powerful and easy-to-use solutions to law enforcement, drug control, prosecution, campus police, private security, and fusion centers to keep communities safe. With only 28 employees on LinkedIn, you can guarantee they will be hiring in several departments.

The other company worth mentioning is one we have well familiarized ourselves with and that is Carpool Logistics. Atlanta Ventures led their latest round of $2M. Mike Malakov and team have built a marketplace that helps dealers and auto auctions ship and track cars more efficiently and reliably. Today that market is plagued by inefficient shipping of cars, little visibility, and a fragmented network of phone calls, emails, and personal connections to move cars between locations which is timely and expensive. Now, there is much more communication, coordination, and transparency with Carpool Logistics’ technology. They are hiring in several roles.

Annnnd, that’s 5 minutes.

Thank you for listening to Five and Thrive. We provide 5 minutes of quality information, so you can thrive in the upcoming week. Please subscribe to the show and spread the good word!

Resources discussed in this episode:

Companies Worth Applying To:

PrizePicks

Product of the Week:

EarthRideShare

Raise Your Glass:

Civiceye

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