Atlanta-based Panoramic Focuses on Emerging Tech Ecosystems; Will Create Largest Tech Fund in the Southeast
ATLANTA, February 8, 2021 — Panoramic Ventures today announced its formation through a partnership between highly successful entrepreneur and investor Paul Judge and BIP Capital, one of the most active venture capital firms in the Southeast with more than $550 million in assets under management. Judge and BIP Capital Co-founder Mark Buffington are managing partners of Panoramic Ventures, which also announced today the launch of a new fund. Panoramic's core mission is to fund companies in the Southeast, Midwest, and other regions across the country where high-potential companies are often overlooked.
"Our intent at Panoramic is to take a wider-view approach to investing in order to give more entrepreneurs access to both capital and expertise to help build leading tech companies, regardless of geographic location," said Buffington. "Looking outside the traditional innovation hubs to find the most promising tech companies is something that we have been doing successfully for over a decade, and with the new Panoramic fund we're accelerating this initiative."
The Southeast and Midwest receive only 14% of VC funding even though they include 44% of the country's population. Further, 36% of last year's Inc. 5000 reside in these regions with a median growth rate of 161% year-over-year.
Panoramic is based in Atlanta, which has a strong presence of colleges, corporations, and culture. The Metro Atlanta area is home to 30 Fortune 1000 corporations and has nearly 300,000 students at its universities ranging from Georgia Tech and Emory University to historically Black colleges. Georgia's cultural influence ranges from music to film. Overall, the environment is well positioned for a venture fund that can support and accelerate the growing ecosystem.
"After years of building companies as an entrepreneur and angel investor, I felt that I could have a greater impact by working with more founders, which is why we created Panoramic Ventures," said Judge. "As a minority who has built companies outside of the traditional tech hubs, I know what it is like to be an overlooked founder. From Atlanta to Miami, from the Southeast to the Midwest, Panoramic wants to back promising founders and extend capital opportunities that may not have previously existed."
In addition to overlooked geographies, racial and gender diversity of founders and teams is also a focus of Panoramic Ventures, with the goal of opening more doors for often underrepresented founders. Black founders receive less than 1% of VC funding and women founders receive less than 3%. The Panoramic team has a collective track record of backing minority and women founders, evidenced by recent investments in such companies as LeaseQuery, Cove.tool, OncoLens, and Eventeny.
The new fund will also pursue innovative companies founded by professors, graduate students, and undergraduates at colleges and universities. U.S. universities conduct over $83 billion in research and development every year from which thousands of new startups are launched annually. Previous investments of this type made by the Panoramic team include Pindrop, Carbice, Pointivo, and Car360.
Panoramic's team members have experience across a wide range of functional areas to help founders develop and scale every aspect of their business, from talent acquisition, product development, and market research to marketing, sales, customer success, and more. The fund's Founder Success Program is designed to help companies accelerate farther and faster with Panoramic as a partner, increasing the odds that entrepreneurs successfully achieve their vision. The program encompasses a range of services, including working with Fortune 500 executives in the region for customer relationships and mentoring as well as collaborating with cultural influencers and celebrities for go-to-market where appropriate.
Prior to co-founding Panoramic, Judge has invested in over 60 tech startups. He is a co-founder and executive chairman of Pindrop, and was previously the co-founder of TechSquare Labs, co-founder of Purewire (acquired by Barracuda), and CTO of CipherTrust (acquired by Secure Computing). Also a co-founder of Panoramic, Buffington has co-founded three other successful companies and has invested in more than 80 companies. Notable investments include Vendormate, Ingenious Med, Aspirion Health, PlayOn! Sports, Tropical Smoothie Café, QASymphony (now Tricentis), REACH Health, Huddle Tickets, ConnexPay, PriorAuthNow, and AchieveIt. Buffington sits on the board of trustees of the Georgia Tech College of Computing and the Alexander-Tharpe Fund (Georgia Tech Athletic Endowment), the Buckhead Coalition, KIPP Metro Atlanta Schools, and the Metro Atlanta Chamber Executive Board of Directors. The Panoramic team is comprised of 24 members offering decades of experience, both as founders and investors, who collectively have invested in over 200 startups and have achieved billions in exit proceeds. Panoramic will invest in Seed, Series A, and Series B funding rounds for software and software-enabled services businesses. The investment team has deep experience in Enterprise SaaS, Healthcare IT, FinTech, Digital Media, Dev Tools, MarTech, Cybersecurity, and Frontier Tech.
About BIP Capital
BIP Capital is recognized as one of the most active and successful venture investors in the Southeast, serving entrepreneurs, investors, and operators to grow the emerging company ecosystem. It applies experience and process to make investment decisions and operational recommendations, allowing its portfolio companies to achieve and stay on a glide path of growth. Areas of focus include Enterprise SaaS, Healthcare IT, FinTech, Digital Media, Dev Tools, MarTech, and Frontier Tech. For more information, visit www.bip-capital.com or follow BIP Capital on LinkedIn or Twitter @BIPCapital.
About BIP Ventures
BIP Ventures partners with extraordinary founders to drive exceptional outcomes. Since 2007, the firm has invested in the success of B2B software and tech-enabled service businesses at all stages of maturity. In addition to capital, we support entrepreneurs with access to infrastructure, acumen, and talent that results in category-leading companies. Our distinct multi-stage investment platform has driven consistent top-quartile returns over 15 years. For more information, visit bip-ventures.vc or follow BIP Ventures on LinkedIn, Instagram, or Twitter @bipventures
Update: In June 2023, Panoramic became a fund within BIP Ventures, the core North American Venture Products within BIP Capital.
