Engage is designed to promote innovation through a network of connections between startups, corporations, university researchers, and the venture community.
Enterprise
Startups
Corporate
Partners
Research
Universities
Enterprise Startups
Engage startups are B2B enterprise technology companies, led by visionary entrepreneurs in pursuit of world-changing ideas.
Corporate Partners
Engage corporate partners set the standard of excellence in their respective industries. Together, they represent millions of global employees and hundreds of billions in annual revenue.
Research Universities
Engage's exclusive partnership with Georgia Tech, one of the country's top research and technology commercialization universities, provides unique access to its startup, innovation, and research initiatives.
What We Look For
Our collaborative sourcing and diligence process utilizes an extensive venture and startup network, proprietary cross-corporate insights, and data-driven market theses to recruit B2B enterprise startups with the potential to reshape the future of industries.
We are searching for visionary entrepreneurs building enterprise startups spanning these six strategic themes: Customer Experience, Supply Chain & Manufacturing, Future of Work, Big Data, Analytics, & Security, Logistics & Mobility, and Climate Tech & Sustainability.
Bolstering the Southeast Innovation Ecosystem
Engage’s aim is to establish Atlanta as the best place in the country for an enterprise-focused startup to do business. 70% of Engage startups are Southeast-headquartered, with 40% based in Atlanta. Many of our companies have relocated or opened an Atlanta office since joining Engage.
Engage startups employ more than 1,300 people, with over 200 employed in Atlanta.
The Fund
Engage is a strategic investor that invests in companies selected for the Engage Go-To-Market Program. Engage deploys both capital and enterprise expertise to help startups breakthrough corporate barriers and operate at full speed.
Engage is changing corporate innovation and venture capital by introducing a collaborative venture investment model for corporations. Our partners are Chick-fil-A, The Coca-Cola Company, Cox Enterprises, Delta Air Lines, Georgia-Pacific, Georgia Power Foundation, Georgia Tech, Goldman Sachs, The Home Depot, Honeywell Connected Enterprise, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), Inspire Brands, Invesco, Invest Georgia, Tech Square Ventures, UPS, and Wellstar Health System.
The Engage fund is managed by Tech Square Ventures.
Success Stories
Making Travel Healthier: A Game-Changing Disinfectant Technology and a Global Airline
In 2018, Delta connected with Vyv, a startup that produces safe antimicrobial LED lights that continuously kill bacteria on surfaces. Vyv’s lights are only about 20 percent more expensive than a traditional light and continuously disinfect surfaces anywhere from an office to a locker room or even a commercial aircraft.
While Delta’s innovation team was interested, they knew that a pilot with a global airline would require cross-divisional support and executive sponsorship, not to mention ensuring that the startup was ready to engage at enterprise-scale with Delta. So, they introduced Vyv to Engage.
“We told Vyv’s CEO Colleen Costello that one of the best ways to get that executive buy-in to push this forward was Engage,” said Vikram Rajagopalan, Innovation Strategy Lead at Delta. “That paved the execution path.”
Throughout Engage’s go-to-market program, the team worked with Vyv to help navigate the challenges of an enterprise engagement. After months of technical, operational, and regulatory work, Vyv’s lights were successfully aircraft-certified and installed in a Boeing 757 airplane. The Delta team is continuing to put together a scope for a larger fleet rollout strategy of the disinfectant technology.
Finally, Delta expanded upon their commercial relationship by directly investing in Vyv’s Series A financing. The airline wanted to ensure direct alignment of their mission as they build upon their partnership.
Creating A New Generation of Retail: National Retail Brands Gain Shopper Visibility With AI
The ability of brick-and-mortar retail to adapt to a changing consumer landscape is reliant on technology, specifically the kind of tools that can allow physical locations to compete with the prevalence of online shopping and e-commerce. Deep North’s artificial intelligence-powered platform, which applies computer vision and data analytics to the video pulled from a store or venue’s existing camera system, empowers this next-generation of physical retailers.
Unlike other solutions that track non-visual cues like cell phone data, store beacons, Wifi usage, etc., Deep North analyzes visual cues like checkout wait times, shopping cart abandonment, customer sentiment, and shopping patterns. This is critical data to a retailer trying to predict and optimize shopper experience — and they do it all while protecting Personal Identifiable Information (PII) and complying with the GDPR and CCPA.
Prior to investment from Engage, Deep North was already working with several national retailers and large venues, transportation hubs, and arenas. Within the first few months of joining the Engage platform, Deep North met with all relevant Engage corporate partners and kicked off a pilot with national retailer The Home Depot.
The Deep North team took advantage of the Engage platform to build relationships with corporate partners beyond commercial contracts. In spring 2020, both The Home Depot and Delta Air Lines joined Engage and other venture firms in the company’s $25 million Series A funding round.
“With the support of respected global brands, we are confident that our platform is truly enabling the experiential retail that customers are demanding,” said CEO Rohan Sanil following the Series A.
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