Three programs. 120 founders. A window-washing company in Franklin and an AI security gateway for hospital data, in the same building.
The Nashville Entrepreneur Center’s Fall 2026 cohorts kick off September 1 and run twelve weeks, through November. Three programs, running side by side: TakeOff, for founders with a working product and first customers (70 companies). InFlight, for growth-stage companies scaling revenue and team (26 companies). Project Healthcare, for healthcare innovators at any stage (15 companies).
Here’s the number that should make Nashville pay attention: 79 of the 111 companies are led by a first-time founder. Most aren’t serial entrepreneurs cashing in a network. They’re people who quit a job, or never had one to quit, and bet that Nashville was the place to find out if the idea works.
They’re not showing up empty-handed. Founders reported $11.3 million in investor capital already raised and $4.5 million in current annual revenue, self-reported at application, before the programs even started. And 85 of the 111 companies already have pilot, paying, or repeat customers. First-time founders, mostly. Already running real businesses.
Who’s actually in the room
Amit Reshef ran a candle business at farmers markets before he started AA Window Washing in Franklin — pressure washing, gutter cleaning, Christmas lights. He’s in TakeOff, trying to convert one-time customers into recurring maintenance plans.
Diana Medina and Erik Schnaars are in InFlight with Nashville Cleaning Services, a commercial and residential cleaning company covering Middle Tennessee. Their challenge isn’t finding customers. It’s building a company that runs without them approving every job.
Also in InFlight: Eric Gilbert-Williams, who built and exited a 60-person construction company and is now running The Public Bored, which turns digital billboards into a participatory public medium — closer to a shared civic screen than an ad unit.
Healthcare is the single biggest industry in the cohort. 27 of the 111 companies build there, well ahead of professional services (17), the next category. That’s bigger than the 15-company Project Healthcare program itself, because healthcare founders also turn up inside TakeOff and InFlight. Two from Project Healthcare: Jay Zigmont and Stephanie Viehman’s Beyond Lineage acts as medical and financial power of attorney for the roughly 25% of Americans who don’t have children and never will — someone has to make those calls when they can’t. And MindWave Medical, founded by a physician who spent 20 years in the ICU, built a bone-conduction headset that routes hospital alarms away from speakers and, the company says, cut ICU delirium by half in its own data.
That’s five companies out of 111. Not a representative sample — a reason to go look at the rest.
Where they’re from
Thirty-three cities and towns are represented, and the center of gravity is still Nashville: 55 companies here, another 19 across Franklin, Murfreesboro, Clarksville, and Brentwood. A few flew in from further out. Nurtureconnect’s team works out of Nairobi, and Equiply’s founder is based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The rest of the cohort spans professional services, tech, food and beverage, retail, education, and nine more industries, fifteen categories in total.
See the rest yourself
A founder’s onboarding form is a snapshot, not a biography, and 111 companies don’t fit in one blog post. The full directories are live, searchable, and filterable by industry or stage — browse TakeOff, InFlight, and Project Healthcare. Filter to whatever slice you care about, and the link carries the filter with it.
If you’re a partner, investor, or just someone who wants an introduction to a few of these founders, reach out to Rob Williams at rob.williams@ec.co.
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