Lehi, Utah, April 10, 2024

Venture Capital Podcast, founded in 2021 by Jon Bradshaw and Peter Harris, announces the Founder 100, a community-nominated, peer-selected recognition program and celebratory event of Utah's top 100 founders.

Its premise: Who are the top Utah Founders you think VCs should watch?

The Founder 100 recognizes and celebrates the vision, hard work, and achievements of Utah’s top entrepreneurs. It will foster terrific networking opportunities with Utah's entrepreneurs, investors, mentors and partner organizations. As a community effort, it underscores the broad, community-minded and collaborative nature of Utah's rich entrepreneurship culture that is constantly acknowledged by many organizations. It serves as a means for like-minded peers—Utah's entrepreneurs, and an interconnected ecosystem that supports them—to  collectively contribute to the common goal of building Utah's healthy entrepreneurship ecosystem while simultaneously growing their own startups.

The Founder 100 builds on the legacy of Paul Ahlstrom, Co-Founder of IsoTalent, Co-Founder of TechBuzz News, Founder and CEO of Alta Global, along with other foundations, companies and venture funds that Paul has founded and operated in Utah since the 1980s. The VCP 100 is an initiative built upon the foundation of the v100 and WIN100, highlighting Utah's leading entrepreneurs and setting a benchmark for excellence.

“Creating new ventures that contribute to Utah's great economy is no easy task; it deserves our collective support,” said Ahlstrom. “We believe the business leaders recognized by the VCP 100 will greatly benefit Utah in terms of innovative products, meaningful jobs, and business creation over the next few years. The success of our entrepreneurial community in Utah is not a given, but one we have long worked to build and sustain with capital and services. Utah's entrepreneurs, regardless of who is selected by the VCP 100, will be bolstered by this program. They will be in a better position to receive the necessary support and investment to make sure they succeed in growing the next generation of impactful Utah companies.”

Who may nominate entrepreneurs for the Founder 100?

Anyone interested in Utah's vibrant technology culture is permitted to nominate—startup founders, tech execs, investors, students, professors, policy-makers—anyone who knows about a remarkable founder, well-known or obscure, that is doing innovative things, building value and is at the forefront of innovation and growth in Utah's powerful startup community.

How to nominate:

  1. Simply tag your nominees to Jon Bradshaw's April 9th LinkedIn post. You may nominate people that have already been nominated. Each nomination strengthens that person's position. Each nomination counts as one vote. All nominees must have ties to Utah.
  2. If you would like your nomination to be anonymous or private, send Jon a private direct message on LinkedIn.
  3. Visit the Founder 100, or click on the link below, and follow the nomination instructions at the top of the page.

Each of the three methods listed above is valid. All nominations from any of the three methods will end up in the same common nomination pool.

After the public nomination phase, which runs through May 20, 2024, the second stage of private voting will commence in mid-May. Each nominee will receive a link to a page where nominees can vote for those originally nominated by the May 20 deadline. An independent panel of judges will then review the voting data and from it select the top 100 winners.

Utah's top 100 entrepreneurs, as nominated by the crowd and voted on by the nominees, will be announced at a gala event in June, 2024, attended by dozens of Utah investment firms (see list below). TechBuzz News will share details of the June event in the coming weeks.

After celebrating Utah's top entrepreneurs, the Founder 100 plans to extend the program to other cities, starting with San Diego (August, 2024), Atlanta: (October, 2024), and Mumbai (December 2024).

 

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