Last August, Boot64 Ventures became the first fund in Louisiana to invest in a local startup using matching dollars from the latest round of the federal government’s State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI). Almost a year later, the two-year-old Jefferson Parish-based firm has nine investments on the books and three more coming soon.
Last summer, a federal report showed that Louisiana was deploying funds more slowly than other states, but the process is beginning to gain momentum. Boot64, led by partners Mickal Adler and John Roberts, helped pave the way by being the first to complete all program requirements and to begin funding projects.
“It was new to the state; it was new to us,” said Adler, a local attorney and entrepreneur whose family owns Adler’s jewelers. “We went through the learning curve together. There was a lot of back and forth to make sure we were doing things correctly.”
Announced in 2021 as part of the Biden administration’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan stimulus package, SSBCI 2.0 could provide up to $90 million in Louisiana that can be used as matching funds for investments in local startups with a focus on entrepreneurs in traditionally underserved communities. An additional $23 million is reserved for loans or loan guarantees.
Boot64, a for-profit enterprise, raised $5 million from private investors to unlock $5 million in SSBCI matching funds. In addition to Roberts and Adler, the firm includes 29 limited partners, seven general partners and an analyst.
In July, Louisiana Economic Development, the state agency responsible for administering the program, reported that it had committed $22.15 million to seven equity funds that have signed agreements and verified matching funds. The agency said four additional funds are securing or verifying matching funds for $5 million of additional SSBCI commitments.
LED’s website lists a dozen funds as participants in the state’s SSBCI Seed Capital Program. In New Orleans, these include the Idea Village, Ochsner Ventures, Propeller, the New Orleans Startup Fund and the Tulane Innovation Institute.
Adler and Roberts welcome the company.
“We plan to make about 55 investments over four years,” said Adler. “We are very rarely, if ever, going to be the only investor in a round. There’s a lot of great funds in this ecosystem, and we want them in the investments with us, because it makes the chances that that investment will be successful way, way higher.”
Boot64’s top priority is finding another 45 businesses worthy of joining its portfolio, which already includes Advano, DAWn Audio, hampr, iCAN Technologies, Ingest, JammAround, Junum, Kubanda Cryotherapy and ProdOps.
The goal is to invest in dozens of companies to increase the chance of uncovering the next Lucid, the first startup in New Orleans to sell for more than $1 billion. A few big winners in the portfolio will help investors get their money back and then some.
Adler and Roberts already have considered roughly 1,000 businesses, and they plan to find more by networking with other funds, business accelerators, incubators and chambers of commerce.
“We’re looking for scalable startups,” said Roberts, who has focused on investing since selling a chain of gas stations and convenience stores in 2018. “If you want to open a coffee shop, that could be a very nice business, but it’s not really venture investable unless you’ve developed a new way to brew coffee that nobody else has and you’re going to open 500 coffee shops. That’s what we mean by ‘scalable.’”
There’s no time to waste if Louisiana is to receive its maximum allotment of federal dollars. The Treasury Department is releasing the money to the state in three chunks. By the beginning of next year, LED needs to show that it met its investment benchmarks to unlock the second disbursement.
The stakes are high, said Adler, because of the profound opportunity the program represents for local entrepreneurs.
“You’ll be looking at, knock on wood, several hundred million dollars going into startups in this ecosystem over the next year to two years,” he said.
Rich Collins is an Emmy Award-winning writer, musician and actor known for the Disney Channel TV series “Imagination Movers.”
