One year ago today, we announced the EC Impact Grants: non-dilutive cash for founders graduating our accelerators — TakeOff, InFlight, and Project Healthcare.
The pitch was simple. Win a competition at Nashville Entrepreneur Day, walk away with a check, keep 100% of your company.
One year later: $80,000 deployed. Six founders funded. Zero shares taken.
Here’s what that money actually did — and why we’re doing it again this winter.
The math
Two events, two deployments, $40,000 each.
Nashville Entrepreneur Day Winter 2025 — the first-ever Impact Grant pitch competition:
- $25,000 → Senior Shield Technologies (Kareem Elfoulie) — alerts elder care staff when incontinence briefs need changing
- $10,000 → Adele Health (Mark Norton) — a diabetes management platform that fits in your pocket
- $5,000 → Avenue.co (Heather Utzig & Matthew Utzig) — eliminates medical errors from missing surgical tool instructions
Nashville Entrepreneur Day Spring 2026 — the second deployment:
- $25,000 → Fidari Inc (Othman Ouenes) — care coordination for community oncology clinics, already serving 12,000+ patients
- $10,000 → NEUROFIT (Andrew & Loren Hogue) — 7-day stress relief for hospital staff and veterans, clinically validated across 16,000+ users
- $5,000 → Plant Savvy (Savannah Toal) — plant design for corporate spaces
- Crowd Favorite → AVRwell Inc (Emily Daviss PT, DPT & Kristen Rivera-Valentin)
Ten finalists competed at each event. Only three took home a check. Every one of them earned it in front of a packed house at GEODIS Park.
Where the money comes from
The EC Endowment: $5M+ raised by Nashville entrepreneurs who exited their companies and put the proceeds back into the next generation. Chaired by Robert A. Frist, Jr. and John Ingram, it generates investment income, and that income becomes Impact Grants.
Frist put it plainly to the Winter 2025 finalists:
“Look ahead ten years. After you build something successful, look back — and remember to give back.”
Winter 2025 was the first deployment. Spring 2026 was the second. That’s the loop — founders funded by founders, year after year.
The real proof isn’t the check. It’s who comes back.
Anyone can hand out cash once. The test is what happens after.
Kareem Elfoulie won the first Impact Grant ever awarded — $25,000 for Senior Shield Technologies at Winter 2025. Six months later, he was back in Nashville. Not because he had to be. He’d emailed the EC team asking for introductions to local hospital systems and senior care leaders, and the EC delivered: meetings with HCA, Ascension, Vanderbilt, and LifePoint. His company is still growing, and the relationship never actually ended.
“This has been a transformational experience coming to the healthcare capital of the country,” he said after winning.
Mark Norton took $10,000 for Adele Health at that same Winter 2025 event. “That $10,000 check bought a bunch of 3D printers,” he said, “and it’s totally changed the game for us.” Six months later, Mark was back on the same stage — this time as an Impact Grant judge. Same impact. Opposite seat.
That’s the pattern the EC is betting on: grant money is the opening move, not the whole game.
What’s next: Nashville Entrepreneur Day is a checkpoint, not a finish line
At Spring 2026, Othman Ouenes summed up what winning meant for Fidari:
“Grateful to have won the $25,000 EC Impact Grant at Nashville Entrepreneur Day. Thank you to the Nashville Entrepreneur Center, the judges, and everyone who filled the room. Even prouder of the founders I shared the stage with. Tennessee is where Fidari proves what comes next.”
Sam Davidson closed it out on stage the same way he opened the first one: “A community event for the community, by the community.”
Your turn
Winter 2026 accelerator applications — TakeOff, InFlight, and Project Healthcare — close July 6.
Get in, do the work, and you’re eligible to pitch for the next round of Impact Grants at Nashville Entrepreneur Day.
Apply now: ec.co/apply
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