NEW ORLEANS — Greater New Orleans Inc. has announced the launch of StartupNOLA.com, a website designed to support and promote the region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem by helping founders, investors and job seekers become familiar with the area’s startup community and supporting assets.
The site aims to build on the momentum created by the city’s record number of tech exits in 2021. These include the sale of Lucid for $1.1 billion, SunPro Solar for $850 million and Levelset for $500 million.
“StartupNOLA will help to connect, grow and promote the 10-parish entrepreneurial ecosystem in order to create jobs, companies and wealth in southeast Louisiana,” said Gay Le Breton, managing director of Chaffe & Associates, in press release announcing the launch of the new website. “With the combination of the region’s universities and advanced manufacturing, technology and healthcare industries, we have the intellectual infrastructure to accelerate the development of startups in our market. The recent success from local startups, as demonstrated by an increased level of growth and exits by greater New Orleans companies, will attract even more capital and participation in this market.”
GNO Inc. says New Orleans’ low cost of living and high number of minority- and women-owned startups make it an appealing choice for investors.
“Greater New Orleans has a robust and growing entrepreneurial ecosystem,” said Michael Hecht, president and CEO of Greater New Orleans Inc. “We felt that a single point of entry to this community would help make it more accessible and impactful for founders, investors, and even people who want to work at new companies.”
The StartupNOLA website includes a database of startups in the market, a list of support organizations and assets in the market, descriptions of local industries for job seekers, blog updates of news from the ecosystem and more.
The StartupNOLA database was developed with help from Idea Village, Tulane University’s Albert Lepage Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, and Propeller. Entrepreneurial organizations can use the intake form to provide submissions to be added in the directory.