//Venture capital firm Cultivation Capital to open new regional headquarters in downtown Greenville

Venture capital firm Cultivation Capital to open new regional headquarters in downtown Greenville

The venture capital firm Cultivation Capital has announced plans to open its new regional headquarters in Greenville.

Representatives of the firm, which is regularly ranked as one of the most most active early-stage VC firms in the Midwest, said the move would serve as an expansion of its footprint into the Southeast.

“We believe that the Southeast is the most logical part of the country for us to add focus and to grow,” said the firm’s co-founder and managing director, Cliff Holekamp.

Holekamp said the allure of Greenville was not only a strategic draw, but a personal one.

“In fact, I believe the opportunities are so significant, that I am going myself,” he said.

Cultivation Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm investing in software technology, life sciences and agriculture technology companies, was founded in 2012 and has invested in more than 150 companies.

The decision to set up shop in Greenville was spurred primarily by the area’s growing startup community, coupled with its proximity to major entrepreneurial centers in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Atlanta, Georgia, Holekamp said. The firm will open its office in the NEXT on Main Innovation Center located in ONE City Plaza in Greenville’s Central Business District.

Holekamp said recruiting efforts from the South Carolina Research Authority and Hughes Development played a key role in the move.

Describing the announcement as a major boon for the local startup community, NEXT Interim CEO Ken Brower said he was “delighted to recruit additional capital resources to the region.” 

“Cultivation Capital has an expertise in investing in remerging startup markets that will be a key contributor to our growing startup community,” Brower said.

Holekamp, who hails from the St. Louis, Missouri, entrepreneurial ecosystem, has served as a board member at various entrepreneurship and economic development organizations, including a stint as a gubernatorial appointee to the Missouri Development Finance Board. He also served as a professor and the academic director for entrepreneurship at Washington University in St Louis.

“I look forward to contributing both my professional and personal efforts to helping build the entrepreneurial ecosystems in South Carolina,” he said.

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