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Paul Judge and Mark Buffington join to launch $300m VC fund

“From Atlanta to Miami, from the Southeast to the Midwest” – Founders promise to back promising founders and extend capital opportunities that may not have previously existed across the region.

By João Marques Lima

Founder and Editor, The Tech Capital

3 Mins

February 09, 2021 | 12:26 PM GMT

Two of the most prominent US investors of the moment have partnered to launch venture capital firm Panoramic Ventures.

Entrepreneur and investor Paul Judge and BIP Capital’s co-founder Mark Buffington are now managing partners of the new VC business, which has a target of $300 million in capital raising.

Atlanta-based Panoramic’s core mission is to fund companies in the US’ Southeast, Midwest, and other regions across the country where high-potential companies are often overlooked, the executives explained in a statement. 

Panoramic will invest in Seed, Series A, and Series B funding rounds for software and software-enabled services businesses. The investment team has deep experience in Enterprise SaaS, Healthcare IT, FinTech, Digital Media, Dev Tools, MarTech, Cybersecurity, and Frontier Tech.

Buffington said: “Our intent at Panoramic is to take a wider-view approach to investing in order to give more entrepreneurs access to both capital and expertise to help build leading tech companies, regardless of geographic location. 

“Looking outside the traditional innovation hubs to find the most promising tech companies is something that we have been doing successfully for over a decade, and with the new Panoramic fund we’re accelerating this initiative.”  

The Southeast and Midwest receive “only 14% of VC funding even though they include 44 percent of the country’s population”. Further, 36% of last year’s Inc. 5000 reside in these regions with a median growth rate of 161 percent year over year.

In addition to overlooked geographies, racial and gender diversity of founders and teams is also a focus of Panoramic Ventures, with the goal of opening more doors for often underrepresented founders. 

Black founders receive less than one percent of VC funding and women founders receive less than three percent. The Panoramic team has a collective track record of backing minority and women founders, evidenced by recent investments in such companies as LeaseQuery, Cove.tool, OncoLens, and Eventeny.

The new fund will also pursue innovative companies founded by professors, graduate students, and undergraduates at colleges and universities. US universities conduct over $83 billion in research and development every year from which thousands of new startups are launched annually. Previous investments of this type made by the Panoramic team include Pindrop, Carbice, Pointivo, and Car360.

Judge said: “After years of building companies as an entrepreneur and angel investor, I felt that I could have a greater impact by working with more founders, which is why we created Panoramic Ventures. 

“As a minority who has built companies outside of the traditional tech hubs, I know what it is like to be an overlooked founder. From Atlanta to Miami, from the Southeast to the Midwest, Panoramic wants to back promising founders and extend capital opportunities that may not have previously existed.”

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João Marques Lima

Founder and Editor, The Tech Capital

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