Georgia Tech Launches USD 1M Retail Technology Initiative

Adrian J Cotterill, Editor-in-Chief

Georgia’s technology incubator, the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), is launching a new initiative for entrepreneurs focused on retail-related technology. The new program is being funded by a USD 1 million gift from the Mookerji Foundation to the Georgia Tech Foundation.

Founded in 1980, ATDC is a program of the Enterprise Innovation Institute, the Georgia Institute of Technology’s chief economic development arm. ATDC is one of the longest running university-affiliated incubators in the United States.

The Georgia Tech Foundation has earmarked the new funds for the formation of the ATDC Retail Program. The gift will fully fund the retail technology startup initiative for the next five years and support a retail technology expert who will serve as an entrepreneur-in-residence to mentor the startups and offer expertise relating to the field of entrepreneurship.

The initiative is the second of its kind for ATDC. In March 2015, Worldpay US, a global payments technology and services company, made a $1 million gift to Georgia Tech, which used the funds to launch a FinTech program at ATDC. Since its launch, that effort has reached more than 350 entrepreneurs across the state of Georgia, including 17 FinTech startups in the ATDC Signature and ATDC Accelerate portfolios. To date, those companies in both Signature and Accelerate have raised more than $34 million in outside funding.


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