ATDC: Nexus of Innovation in Georgia’s Startup Ecosystem
45 Years of ATDC
– ATLANTA — In 1980, Georgia government and Georgia Tech alums made a bold bet: they launched a technology incubator to support and grow the state’s burgeoning entrepreneurial ecosystem. Today, 45 years later, the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) at Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute is the model for a university-based science and technology incubator. Now, as the longest running university-based technology incubator in the country, it is the Southeast’s globally recognized nexus of innovation for startups.
As this champion of innovation continues to innovate itself, it is graduating its largest class of companies this month — 17. That’s 17 tech entrepreneurs who are market disrupters, job creators, boosting the economy around the state, and helping metro Atlanta and the rest of Georgia realize its dream to become a top five tech hub in the country.
“Even though our home is at Georgia Tech, ATDC is outward facing,” said ATDC Director John Avery. “We support founders from all over the state and entrepreneurs who moved their companies to Georgia to join ATDC, regardless of their association with Georgia Tech. That means our network of resources is also statewide.”
Those resources are not only financial, including state funding and corporate gifts, they are also human, with entrepreneurs-in-residence and startup and industry-specific catalysts around the state to help any emergent tech company anywhere in Georgia get the support it needs to launch and scale.
What keeps ATDC at the forefront of the entrepreneurial ecosystem after 45 years?
In-depth Coaching, Access to Experts
“It’s really the in-depth coaching that we provide,” said Jen Singh, ATDC’s sustainability technology catalyst. “No other hub has the industry expertise and functional expertise that we have on staff here. You come here to work with the experts. You come here to really go deep on your business and be supported as you go through that startup journey.”
Company founders agree.
“The thing that helped us was access to experts,” said Sander Biehn, founder and CEO of ReadyForSocial, a 2025 ATDC graduating company that creates unified sales and marketing strategies. “Expert EIRs [entrepreneurs-in-residence] helped us with our go-to-market strategy, our pitch decks, etc. Feedback Friday was a unique experience for us that enabled us to try things out, come in, pitch things, and hear feedback not only from the experts at ATDC, but also from other startups that were involved at ATDC.”
Unbiased Startup Advice
Another point of differentiation, ATDC doesn’t take an equity position in its portfolio companies.
“We have no stake in the game from an equity investment perspective,” Singh said. “We’re going to give you unfiltered, unbiased opinions and tell you what you need to be doing with your business. That is best for your business.”
Accelerated Scaling and State Support
A third differentiating factor for ATDC is that it is supported by the state of Georgia.
“ATDC is truly an economic development organization,” Jud Savelle, startup catalyst in Albany, Georgia said. “We have the power of and the blessing of the state behind us for the long term. It’s not your traditional incubator that may have short-term financial targets that must be met to support their organizations. We can play the long game.”
That long game is important to founders and makes economic sense for the state.
“I love that it is a thing that the Georgia government does, because it’s so smart and so strategic,” said Tim Sheehan, a former EIR and founder and CEO of Greenlight, an ATDC unicorn company. “Let me help this company, and by doing so, they will hire lots of people and that will lead to payroll taxes and sales taxes and all kinds of good things for the state. Good things flow from companies getting created in Georgia.”
State support also means ATDC takes its statewide mission seriously. Companies don’t have to relocate to Atlanta from across Georgia to get the benefits of ATDC’s resources. With sites and catalysts in Albany, Athens, Augusta, Columbus, Macon, and Savannah, Georgia — as well as educational programming in additional cities — an innovation ecosystem is just around the corner for many entrepreneurs. Founders operating in ATDC’s other sites also have access to Atlanta entrepreneurs and experts through their catalysts and to training, with many classes being offered both in-person and virtually.
Vertical Leaps: Industry Alignment with ATDC Startups
A team effort is essential, but part of ATDC’s success can be traced back to the advent of industry verticals, a strategy of corporate sector sponsors that support startups in their industry or in an industry that is important to their business.
“For most of our history, ATDC was comprised of a few staff and about 30 companies,” Avery said. “Today, because of our corporate practice area funding, we have grown to around 30 staff and 150 startups.”
Corporate practice area funding gives large businesses access to the nimbleness of a startup that can help to solve a problem or enhance the business.
The first vertical, fintech or financial technology, was launched in 2015 with funding support from Worldpay and with the help of then-EIR Sheehan.
“Big corporations — whether they’re fintechs or others — a lot of them struggle with innovation,” Sheehan said. “They struggle with creating new products. Their people and processes aren’t really optimized for that.”
With the creation of verticals, big corporations have ready access to innovation.
“You should spend more time at ATDC and get to know the companies coming out of there,” Sheehan told business leaders when he was an EIR. “You could get a strong feed of innovative companies by staying close to ATDC.”
From those conversations grew the idea of vertical focus areas as an official way for corporations to engage with ATDC and have tailored access to the incubator’s portfolio companies. “This is a strategic way to let the [ATDC] startups in that vertical know that this company is very interested and has put some money up to have the ability to come and meet with you guys and hear what you’re doing,” Sheehan said.
Now there are multiple verticals, including fintech, robotics, sustainability, defense tech, and supply chain and logistics, with sponsoring companies working to support startups in their fields through the hiring of catalysts, the development of curriculum and resources appropriate to startups in their verticals, networking opportunities, and mentoring program participants.
The emerging defense tech and cybersecurity vertical, sponsored by ManTech, has been so successful that ATDC recently hired two new catalysts for a total of three people, all with military backgrounds and experience working with the Department of Defense, to help companies navigate government contracting.
Singh, the sustainability catalyst, supports 28 companies in the SustainabilityTech vertical, sponsored by Norfolk Southern. A day in the life of a catalyst goes a long way toward explaining the success companies in ATDC’s portfolio have experienced.
“I’d say 60% of my job is focused coaching sessions with our companies,” Singh said. “We have a regular cadence where we check in with our companies. There are other times where we really do deep preparatory work. For example, if a company is getting ready to raise venture funding, we can do a lot of work in terms of getting their pitch deck in order.
“The other 40% is really about being out in the ecosystem,” she said. “Recruiting, telling the ATDC story, making sure I’m putting our portfolio companies out there, and evangelizing on behalf of them.” Relationship building is another critical piece, she said, noting ATDC convenes mentors, potential investors in these companies, and potential customers. “I’m a bit of a matchmaker. When companies need things that I can’t provide, who in my network do I know to bring in at the right time?”
Where Unicorns are Real: A Statistical Rarity within the Startup World
Another measure of the success of ATDC’s approach is the fact that four unicorns (privately held startups valued at $1 billion or more) have started with or graduated from ATDC, including Sheehan’s own company, Greenlight. He began to develop the company while an ATDC EIR and Sheehan credits the incubator for much of his success.
“I loved my time at ATDC,” Sheehan said about working as an EIR. “I loved the people I got to work with, both on staff, but also all the entrepreneurs that would come in and meet with me. It was so much fun.”
But the entrepreneurial bug didn’t leave him, and within a month he was developing Greenlight, a debit card and money app to help parents, kids, and teens manage money wisely. Greenlight’s first office was at ATDC.
“It was a great environment to build a company,” he said. “I had all these other entrepreneurs and residents at ATDC who I could talk to. They were super helpful.”
Being a part of a community of entrepreneurs at ATDC who were committed not only to the success of their companies but holding other founders accountable and challenging them on strategies and setbacks is the secret sauce to the success of entrepreneurs there, Sheehan said.
“It was just such a healthy, engaging environment,” he said. “I think that’s the thing that was most helpful to entrepreneurs, is the advice and the healthy debate.”
ATDC by the Numbers: 2024
- 141 Active Member Companies
- 14,100 Jobs Supported
- $216 Million in Capital Attracted
- $203 Million in Total Revenue
- 7 Regional Locations: Albany, Atlanta, Athens, Augusta, Columbus, Macon, Savannah
