Portfolio News: BIP Ventures Evergreen BDC Leads Korio Series A Funding
BIP Ventures leads Series A funding for Korio, driving the growth of its innovative Randomization & Trial Supply Management (RTSM) platform.
The 2024 Private Market Symposium marked its 15th year as a premier gathering for private market investors, advisors, founders, and partners. With a record-breaking attendance of over 500 participants at the historic Buckhead Theatre, the banner event was filled with networking, learning, strategic discussions, and a lot of fun. General Partner and COO Mark Flickinger kicked off the evening with highlights from the year, including how we've grown and how we're continuing to deliver on our mission to serve all participants in the Innovation Economy.
BIP Ventures has seen significant momentum since the 2023 symposium. We reported on new investments, company exits, strategic hires, and funding developments, all of which reinforce our strategy of diversifying investor offerings and our commitment to expanding opportunities within private markets. The recap included report on the growth of the BIP Ventures Evergreen BDC, which launched in 2023. We introduced LAGO Evergreen Credit – a pioneering equity product targeting high-growth companies. And we reintroduced our legacy brand, BIP Capital as a comprehensive and scalable private market platform that integrates BIP Ventures, the Evergreen BDC, and LAGO private credit.
Managing Partner and CEO Mark Buffington presented a forward-looking framework on the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) across sectors. He profiled AI's potential for risk and reward, touching on the use of machine learning in pharmaceuticals and education and potential threats in algorithmic warfare. After setting the context, he showcased the incredible power of BIP Ventures' proprietary AI startup engine. A video walk through of the platform showed how the AI engine enables and enhances complex portfolio company assessment tasks including opportunity sourcing, competitive analysis, and portfolio monitoring.
"We developed this proprietary AI engine so we can generate highly detailed reports that help us, but more importantly, our portfolio company leaders, make effective decisions." (Mark Buffington)
Six BIP Ventures portfolio companies took the stage to showcase their innovative solutions across Fan Engagement, Legal Tech, Healthcare Tech, and Financial Platforms.
Mark Flickinger unveiled the 2024 State of StartupsSM in the Southeast annual trend report. This leading data resource on the region's innovation and investment landscape offers insights into key technology sectors, startups, and investors since 2018. Mark presented data and implications on four primary trends shaping the startup investment ecosystem in 2024:
As it does every year, the BIP Ventures Private Market Symposium reaffirmed our commitment to being a fiduciary for our investors and a steward of our founders' dreams. Through conscientious efforts spanning technology, people, portfolio support, investor care, and funding innovations, we do our part to contribute to a robust and dynamic private market ecosystem. We're grateful to everyone who attended in person or online, and for everyone who is part of our community.
If you're an advisor interested in partnering with us, please contact Phil Davidson. If you're an investor interested in learning more about any of our funds or products, please contact a member of our Investor Success team.
Current investors can access videos from the event in their BIP Capital Vision account.