The cruelest lies are the ones we tell ourselves.

You know the biggest lie we keep telling ourselves in the emerging Georgia and Southern venture capital ecosystem? That we need big deals to happen before we’re “ready.” Then, we nervously consult the list of big deals already done, from the most recent as I write this, PrizePicks, to Mailchimp, to other recent multi-billion dollar outcomes all across the ecosystem–and we shiver, and think, nope “just not enough yet.”

The truth is, it was already more than enough. That there is a certain “exit size” that anoints an ecosystem as “ready” is a lie others want us to believe—coastal investors, out-of-state consultants, and those who lack the courage VC requires. In other words, it serves them, not us who make our home in this region.

In fact, the truth is this:

There never was a “chicken-and-egg problem” between which came first, the venture capital or the great entrepreneurs.

I hope this truth does what truth can do, and sets you free of the idea that “our exits are not enough.” The clear history of VC, which the Kauffman Fellows program first read me in on, shows the capital came first. Three examples:

1. J.H. Whitney & Company, founded in 1946 by John Hay “Jock” Whitney, a wealthy financier and philanthropist, raised millions of private family money to back unproven ideas in a postwar world that barely had a name for “venture capital.” Their first big swing? Turning a munitions factory into a fertilizer business—and later investing in a small citrus company called Florida Foods, which invented Minute Maid orange juice and went on to sell to Coca-Cola (source).

2. At the same moment, another wealthy industrialist, Laurance Rockefeller, launched what became Venrock, the Rockefeller family’s venture arm. Venrock invested in frontier technologies long before “tech” was an industry—electronics, optics, and computing—and later backed companies like Intel and Apple (source).

3. And then there was ARDC — American Research and Development Corporation, led by MIT professor and WW II general Georges Doriot. Founded in 1946, it was the first VC firm to raise capital from outside investors. ARDC’s landmark deal was a $70,000 investment in a small computer company called Digital Equipment Corporation. When DEC went public in 1968, that stake returned over 5,000× (source).

Do you think VC hype is a “new” thing and we are “over sizzling” the opportunity today?

No. Arguably the first VC, George Doriot said, “We are a movement, not just a company. A commercial bank lends only on the strength of past successes and proven assets. I want money to do things that have never been done before.” (Georges F. Doriot, in Shawmut News Bulletin, 1961)

None of these firms, nor the dozens that sprouted after them, waited for “big exits” to justify their funds nor did their limited partners wait for ten-year track records. In fact, VC was–and is–the most speculative of speculation. They failed often. We fail often. But when we back those few, future-setting founders properly capitalized to win, VCs shower gold in the ecosystems courageous enough to capitalize them. It is and will always be a high risk endeavor, and the losses–those are also enormous along the way, not just in capital, but also in dreams that died.

These are the high-risk, high-reward-potential realities that inspire me today at Valor, the South’s pure-play seed lead VC.

Here in Georgia—and across the South—we should free our innovation ecosystem, and the wealth within it, from the lies we’ve been told. Let’s focus on the facts of the abundance of opportunity we already have. (My recent blog post on why LPs should look South goes into some of the case around how we can be sure entrepreneurs and this ecosystem is ready.)

ASIDE – By the way, how many billions in exits are we waiting for again?

Here are just a few to spark your courage–and free you further from the lies others are telling us.

State	Company	Acquirer	Announced / Closed	Deal Value (USD)
Georgia	Mailchimp (Atlanta)	Intuit	2021 / 2022	~$12B
Georgia	GreenSky (Atlanta)	Goldman Sachs	2021 / 2022	~$2.24B
Georgia	Paya (Atlanta)	Nuvei	2023	~$1.3B
Georgia	Veritiv (Sandy Springs)	Clayton Dubilier & Rice	2023	~$2.6B
Georgia	PrizePicks (Atlanta)	Allwyn International	2025 / 2026 (expected)	~$2.5B
Florida	Black Knight (Jacksonville)	Intercontinental Exchange	2023	~$11.9B
Florida	Citrix Systems (Fort Lauderdale)	Vista Equity & Elliott Management (Evergreen)	2022	~$16.5B
Florida	Ultimate Software (Weston)	Hellman & Friedman et al.	2019	~$11B
North Carolina	Red Hat (Raleigh)	IBM	2018 / 2019	~$34B
North Carolina	PRA Health Sciences (Raleigh)	ICON plc	2021	~$12B

At Valor, we’re embracing the opportunity that comes with being a pure play seed-stage lead investor in the South.

In our pipeline—over 2,000 seed opportunities reviewed in the last year—I can assure you, the problem is not with entrepreneurs’ ideas. It’s with the scale of the capital infrastructure here to support them. Let’s spread the freedom and possibility that come from sharing truth and acting with courage. Let’s build a better ecosystem in this economically booming region that’s still painfully undercapitalized because of how we allow lies to lower our skies.

The Atlanta Ventures sticker on my lap top says Dream Bigger--yes, and–let’s also do.

If this made you think, please share this post with someone else who needs to see it.

Yours in courage,

-Lisa

Lies We Tell VCs and Founders In The South