The Company Lab

The Company Lab (CO.LAB) is a nonprofit startup accelerator that supports entrepreneurial growth in southeast Tennessee.  They provide programs for founders with a vision to rapidly scale their small to medium enterprises (SMEs) or tech-enabled business. They also give  access to traditional and non-traditional capital pathways..They provide connections to customers, mentors and access to corporate partnerships. According to them it is essential to support the regional talent pipeline to ensure startups can grow in place.

They believe they give a voice and platform to tell the story of Chattanooga’s entrepreneurs.

Founded in September 2009, and originally called Create Here, CO.LAB emerged to support and attract entrepreneurs and innovators to the City of Chattanooga — which has a unique set of assets from its infrastructure and natural beauty to its citizens and leadership. Funded by LaunchTN, foundations and various local businesses, CO.LAB currently employs six people (including the CEO) with an approximately $1M annual operating budget. The CEO position of Colab has recently opened due to the elevation of the current CEO, Lindsey Cox, to the CEO of LaunchTN, ensuring continued close collaboration between the two organizations. To date, CO.LAB has worked with 100s of companies (including Branch Technology, Variable, WeCounsel (now Visuwell) through a variety of programming, supported $120 million of early-stage capital, and been key to the growth and vibrancy of Chattanooga’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Mission: CO.LAB is a nonprofit dedicated to accelerating startups in the greater Chattanooga region. They support companies from launch to scale.             

Vision: They envision and innovative, inclusive and thriving Chattanooga. They believe that entrepreneurship plays a pivotal role in this vision, and it is their job to empower this daily.

Each year since 2017 they have produced and distributed an annual report that goes into detail about the work of CO.LAB and their entrepreneurial ecosystem. In 2019 and 2018, they released Insights Reports, which highlight efforts and successes in CO.LAB and their broader entrepreneurial ecosystem for each year. In 2017, they completed the CO.LAB Impact Report, which summarises their work and outcomes since our conception (2008 – 2016).