Nashville’s next founders take the stage. December 3.
The EC’s fall accelerator cohorts graduate at GEODIS Park: a founder expo, live pitches, and $40,000 in non-dilutive Impact Grants awarded on the spot. Free and open to everyone. Registration required.
Nashville Entrepreneur Day · Winter 2026
Free and open to the public, capped at 750. Every Nashville Entrepreneur Day has sold out.
GEODIS Park, 501 Benton Avenue, Nashville. Enter through Gate A.
Free. Park in Lot 10 (Wilson Drive). Overflow in Lot 11 (401 Wedgewood Ave).
Arrive by 1:15 PM for opening remarks. Come and go — each pitch track runs on its own schedule.
Food trucks outside Gate A. Drinks available for purchase.
A city’s founder economy, in one afternoon.
Nashville Entrepreneur Day is where the EC’s accelerator cohorts graduate out loud — twice a year, free, and open to everyone. On December 3, the Fall 2026 TakeOff, InFlight, and Project Healthcare cohorts show the city what they’ve built.
Every founder hosts an expo booth at GEODIS Park — healthcare innovators, consumer brands, B2B operators. Sample products. Meet the people building real businesses.
Finalists take the stage to pitch for the EC Impact Grants: $40,000 in non-dilutive capital across two pitch tracks. Project Healthcare founders compete for $20,000 ($12,000 and $8,000). TakeOff and InFlight finalists compete for $20,000 ($8,000, $6,000, $4,000, and $2,000). Judged by the EC program team, board members, and community partners. Awarded on the spot. No equity. No strings.
The front rows fill with connectors — experienced operators who scan a QR code after each pitch and submit exactly how they can help. The EC delivers those forms to founders within days.
$40,000 in non-dilutive capital. Awarded on stage.
Funded by the EC Endowment — a $5M+ fund raised from entrepreneurs who exited their companies and put the proceeds back into the next generation. Entrepreneurs funding entrepreneurs.
Fidari
Othman Ouenes
Care coordination platform for community oncology clinics. Standardizes patient navigation, supportive care, and billing — already serving 12,000+ patients.
NEUROFIT
Andrew & Loren Hogue
7-day stress relief techniques targeting hospital staff burnout — clinically validated across 16,000+ real-world users.
Plant Savvy
Savannah Toal
Plant design and maintenance making corporate spaces warmer. Bottlenecked only by team capacity — exactly the kind of company the grant unblocks.
AVRWell · Emily Daviss & Kristen Rivera-Valentin
1,100 in the room voted. Six months of EC coworking on the house.
What 1,100 people saw at Nashville Entrepreneur Day.
From the concourse takeover and the $25K big-check moment to the post-pitch huddles and a happy hour that ran past six — the kind of afternoon where introductions actually follow.
Look ahead ten years. After you build something successful, look back — and remember to give back.
Robert A. Frist, Jr. · Former Board Chair, Nashville Entrepreneur Center · EC Endowment co-chair
The EC Endowment is a $5M+ fund raised from entrepreneurs who exited their companies and put the proceeds back into the next generation. Winter 2025 was its first deployment — $40,000 across three founders. Spring 2026 was the second. Winter 2026 is the third. That’s the loop: founders funded by founders, year after year.
What founders, judges, and connectors say.
It really is a community event for the community, by the community. That’s what we love to see here in Nashville.
Sam Davidson · CEO, Nashville Entrepreneur Center
This has been a transformational experience for us coming to the healthcare capital of the country. There’s no place like this.
Kareem Elfoulie · Senior Shield Technologies · Winter 2025 · $25K Impact Grant winner
We’re going to use this to accelerate development and build better business relationships that accelerate our path to market.
Mark Norton · Adele Health · Winter 2025 winner → Spring 2026 judge
Tennessee’s founders are launching real businesses, solving real problems, creating real jobs.
Nathan Buttrey · Senior Advisor to the Commissioner · TN Dept. of Economic and Community Development
I wish I’d had the kind of guidance these founders are getting when I was building my first company. Being a connector is how I give that back.
Dan Stevenson · Consumer packaged goods connector
Thank you for choosing Nashville. If there’s anything we can ever do to help out — especially with red tape — please let us know.
Jamari Brown · Metro Nashville Economic and Community Development
The relationships keep working.
Six months after winning the EC’s first-ever Impact Grant — and graduating from Project Healthcare — Kareem Elfoulie is back in Nashville. Meeting with HCA, Ascension, Vanderbilt, and LifePoint. Not because he had to. Because the network kept opening doors.
That’s the real product: not the program, not the one-day event. The community founders can tap into long after graduation.
Every edition has sold out. Here’s the through-line.
1,100 strong at GEODIS Park.
Sold out. 80+ founder booths. $40K in Impact Grants to Fidari, NEUROFIT, and Plant Savvy. Three cohorts graduated — TakeOff, InFlight, Project Healthcare.
The Endowment’s first deployment.
350+ at the Premier Club. 70 applied · 10 finalists · 3 funded. $25K to Senior Shield (Kareem Elfoulie), $10K to Adele Health (Mark Norton), $5K to Avenue.co (Heather & Matthew Utzig).
The first one. The format clicks.
The inaugural GEODIS Park edition. Mayor Freddie O’Connell welcomed founders to the concourse. Sized the room for what was coming.
Want your brand in this room?
750 founders, investors, and operators · GEODIS Park · co-branded with the EC. Presenting sponsor, Impact Grant presenting partner, concourse takeovers, founder-passport scavenger hunt with raffle, expo category sponsors, happy hour. Custom packages available.
Three cohorts graduate on December 3.
TakeOff, InFlight, and Project Healthcare — twelve weeks of work, on stage at GEODIS Park. Plus Founders Circles for women, veterans, founders of color, and LGBTQ+ founders — announced at Spring 2026.
Early-stage founders getting to first traction.
For the earliest-stage founders in the EC pipeline. Twelve weeks of structure, mentorship, and customer discovery.
Post-revenue founders scaling up.
Growth-stage companies with customers and traction, building the systems to scale to the next order of magnitude.
Health innovators in the healthcare capital.
Medical devices, digital health, and care-delivery founders building in the country’s healthcare hub.
Explore the EC accelerators.
The next class of Nashville founders takes the stage.
Founder expo, live pitches, and $40,000 in Impact Grants awarded on the spot. Free and open to everyone — registration required.
750 spots. Every edition has sold out.