June 23, 2022

🚀 Upcoming Company: Franklin Junction, ⬆Blog Post of the Week: Ergeon’s Pitchdeck Teardown, 📅 Events: Startup Showdown, 🥂 Cheers: Prokeep

E4 | Franklin Junction, Storied Collection, Prokeep

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.

Real Realestate:

LinkedIn and Twitter have been laced with debates around the future of office space since the pandemic began. Predicting the market cycle for commercial real estate exceeds the current ambition on this podcast however we do have a sound data point regarding startups and early stage companies. Aly Merritt, the MD of the ATV and I chatted amongst the hustle and bustle of the Kula coffee line yesterday. As of this recording, there are over 1200 members and 300 companies. Since the pandemic, this is the first time a waitlist has re-formed at the ATV. Aly described the new work experience which I’m paraphrasing “companies are using the Village as a natural addition to their work experience. Folks may come in later or leave earlier, but there is way more foot traffic and people working on the weekends as well.” The fluidity of the ATV is always exhilarating. We have companies moving out and moving in every 30-60 days but overall the office is definitely back…but it is back on the terms of the entrepreneurs and employees.

Company Coming Up:

For this week’s Company Coming Up, this Atlanta entrepreneur has an innovative approach to host kitchens. That’s right, host kitchens not ghost kitchens. FranklinJunction is the name and Rishi Nigam is the CEO. What is a host kitchen and how does Franklin Junction leverage them? They match underutilized restaurants, called Host Kitchens, with restaurant brands looking for rapid expansion through delivery. Each restaurant benefits because it involves "capital-free revenue growth for both partners." Franklin Junction works with about 30 brands such as Nathan's Famous, Hooters, and David Chang's Fuku. These brands make their products through approximately 250 host kitchens currently in production. Now, Franklin Junction owns the revenue from each sale, and then pays everyone else a cut. They are still early but definitely a company coming up!

Blog Post of the Week:

Transitioning to the Blog of the Week: Ergeon’s Pitch Deck Teardown. This comes from TechCrunch and we admire it for several reasons. First, Ergeon is a fence building company, headquartered out of California but they just launched in Georgia – the market is massive. The previous founder of Upwork, Jenny He is on to her next act so you know it will be good. They just raised $53M after being at it for 4 stealthy years of serious first mover advantage. If you are a student of business model disruption as well as want to know how to tell a Series B story with a top notch pitch deck, click on the link in the show notes.

Product of Week:

Transitioning to the Product of the Week I spoke with the CEO of Storied Collection this week. They are actually pre-launch but this is a time in the company’s journey that can be the most fun to connect with founders as you will get early access to services and even help shift the product. What is Storied Collection? There are over 10,000 castles across Scotland and the UK but they are really hard to find. Storied Collection is a collection of the finest castles, chateaux, and estates wrapped around a membership model. Micheal, their co-founder showed me the castle he is staying in for the British Open next month and it is sweet. Keep an eye for their launch or just send them an email today.

Event of the Week:

This week I attended ATLUnlocked at the Russell Center – which is so legit – Jay Bailey and team brought the energy and connectivity. Mayor Dickens kicked it off. There were entrepreneurs showing their products, food trucks, V-103, WAOK, good beer and delcious lemon ice – just all around greatness. Next week, StartupShowdown is next week. My colleague and Atlanta Ventures Partner, Kathryn O’Day is one of the judges. Link to the event in the show notes.

Raise Your Glass:

Prokeep, out of New Orleans just raised $9M lead by IronSpring Ventures. Prokeep is simple messaging made for distributors between contractors. Cheers to NOLA bringing the heat!

Annnnd, that’s 5 minutes.

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