As April comes to a close we want to look back on how much fun we had celebrating our 10th birthday earlier this month. It has been 10 years of the Knoxville Entrepreneur Center and team KEC threw a big party to celebrate. So many familiar faces came to say hello as well as Mayor Kincannon and former Mayor Rogero! Mayor Kincannon spoke of the importance of having a space and community like KEC in our town. Former Mayor Rogero was in office 10 years ago when KEC first started. She read her speech from the ribbon cutting 10 years ago (Linked at the bottom of the page) and spoke of the growth she has seen in KEC and the city since then. KEC’s Executive Director, Jim Biggs highlighted some of the work the entrepreneur center has done, stating: 

“In the intervening 10 years, we’ve worked with over 1600 entrepreneurs, hosted or partnered on over 1000 events, run co.starters classes, big idea pitch competitions, accelerator programs, LEAP sessions, Maker Summits and 100Knoxville cohorts.  The companies we’ve served have added over 650 jobs to our community, and raised over $160M in capital.”

Food was provided by Real Good Kitchen Catering and an incredible custom cake was created by Porchcat Cakes. It was so great to see so many incredible entrepreneurs and supporters in our office to celebrate our birthday. We look forward to the next 10 years of the Knoxville Entrepreneur Center.