50 South Capital Advisors invites you to attend our fifth annual NLF Summit to be held in person on Thursday July 13, 2023. The NLF Summit will include an update on the growth of the Next Level Fund portfolio over the last 12 months, including a series of discussions with leading venture capitalists, spotlight sessions with founders and management teams of exciting and innovative venture-backed companies as well as with thought leaders to discuss the state of innovation, entrepreneurship, and venture capital in Indiana.
The NLF Summit has become known as an important industry event and an effective forum for meeting with investors, organizations and entrepreneurs to develop, build and maintain long-term relationships. We welcome you to register and learn more about the companies that are driving growth and innovation in Indiana. Registration is free. All guests must register in advance.
Further, the NLF Summit will be held in coordination with our regional partners in celebration of (IND)Venture week in Indianapolis. (IND)Venture will showcase both the venture and entrepreneurial spirit in the region. Separate registrations are required for each event. We hope to see you there!
NLF@50southcapital.ntrs.com
55 Monument Circle, 7th Floor
Indianapolis, IN 46204
Kelli is Co-Founder & General Partner for Sixty8 Capital, a pre-seed/seed stage fund for diverse and undercapitalized entrepreneurs. For the last 4 years, Kelli has led the transformation of a more diverse tech ecosystem in Indiana, through her organization Be Nimble Foundation. Since starting Be Nimble, she has trained 40+ Black and LatinX founders through her accelerator, and has invested nearly $1M in capital and start-up resources. Before moving back to Indianapolis, IN, she lived in NY and LA and worked at organizations like Techstars, Givelify, Blavity, and HipHopDX. She is on the board of Employ Indy, Vanguard Collegiate of Indianapolis, and The Venture Club’s NextGen group.
Eric Tobias is a Co-Founder and Partner at High Alpha, a venture studio in Indianapolis, that conceives, launches and scales high-growth B2B software companies. In addition, High Alpha invests in software companies across North America where Eric serves as a Board Member with many of these companies.
Eric has earned numerous accolades for business leadership, including CIO Magazine’s Thirty Under 30, Indianapolis Business Journal’s Forty Under 40, and Inc Magazine’s “Inc 500” for the Fastest Growing Companies. Eric is a passionate civic leader, serving on the Board of Directors of The Mitch Daniels Leadership Foundation, the Dean’s Council at Indiana University’s School of Informatics, and the Board of Directors at Cathedral High School. Eric is passionate about music, especially the live variety, and owns several music venues in Indianapolis, including the historic Vogue Theater in Broad Ripple and Rock the Ruins at Holliday Park.
Brandon is a founding General Partner at Signal Peak Ventures (SPV) and has an extensive background working with innovative software and technology companies. Brandon has made and managed numerous investments spanning enterprise software, SaaS, Internet, and technology-enabled services. Brandon currently serves on the boards of Degreed, Filevine, Bark, and Hubpay, among others. He has a B.S. and Master’s degree in accounting from Brigham Young University and a JD from Columbia University. Brandon enjoys living in the scenic surroundings of Utah where he has many opportunities to engage in outdoor activities with his family. He is particularly fond of skiing, running, and exploring the mountainous terrain in Utah and Idaho.
Tracy is the Founder and Managing Principal of Graham Allen Partners, a private equity firm that specializes in investing in, and building, technology and technology-enabled companies. He leverages his long history of successfully acquiring and operating businesses to provide strategic and operational support to a growing portfolio of small and middle-market companies. He is currently focused on leveraging analytics and artificial intelligence to help companies evolve via digital transformation.
Prior to Graham Allen Partners, Tracy co-founded GramTel, Inc. (a managed data center provider) in partnership with The Jordan Company (a private equity firm headquartered in New York). As President of GramTel, he was responsible for the company’s strategic direction as well as aligning all internal and external resources to gain market share in the small and mid-sized business market. He led the company to become the largest provider of managed data center services in the state of Indiana and the largest privately held provider in the Midwest. In 2007, he completed the successful sale of GramTel to Cincinnati Bell, Inc. (a publicly traded telecommunications company).
Prior to founding GramTel, he founded Internet Services Management Group, Inc (“ISMG”) where he led the company to become the second largest privately held ISP in the United States (acquiring and integrating 23 companies).
Tracy earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Notre Dame and attended the Indiana University Graduate School of Education.
Tracy has a long history of community service, currently serving on the boards of 1st Source Bank, Beacon Health System, Davenport University, the Regional Development Authority of Northern Indiana’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee; while supporting several other civic organizations.
Max Yoder is CEO and co-founder of Lessonly, the training software company that helps teams learn, practice, and do better work. He is also the author of Do Better Work, a book about being a better teammate. Max lives in Indianapolis, Indiana with his wife, Jess, and daughter Marina. He was cut from the basketball team two years in a row.
Don co-founded Allos in 2010, but he did some pretty cool stuff before that, too.
Don's tenacity and entrepreneurial drive exhibited itself early in his career, when he was so frustrated that Hewlett Packard had come on campus his senior year solely to recruit electrical engineers (as a production and operations management major, he was more of an industrial engineer) that he accosted the recruiter in the hallway and refused to let him leave until he'd managed to secure a job offer.
After working as an operations manager in Hewlett Packard's Circuit Technology Group, serving on the corporate-wide team responsible for the selection of a new ERP system, and having co-founded two small software companies along the way, Don left HP for business school. Upon graduation, he joined The Boston Consulting Group as a consultant, and then Diageo, where he was a manager of strategy for Guinness Americas and Caribbean (he assures us that testing the product was not part of his job responsibilities, but merely a perk).
Aaron Gillum is a Senior Vice President in the Private Equity Group at 50 South Capital Advisors. He is responsible for sourcing and analyzing venture capital partnership investment opportunities, as well as fundraising activities and portfolio management.
Prior to joining Northern Trust, Aaron was co-founder and Managing Partner of an early stage venture fund focused on technology companies in the Midwest and New York City regions. He has over fifteen years of experience in leadership roles with tech start-ups, as well as strategy and restructuring advisory to Fortune 500 and middle market companies across a variety of industries. Aaron was named to Crain's Chicago Business Tech 50, a recipient of the Turnaround Managements Association's, Turnaround of the Year and M&A Advisor's Top 40 Under 40. He serves as the current President of the Venture Club of Indiana. Aaron also serves on the advisory board of several venture funds and is a featured speaker at industry events and conferences.
Aaron earned an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and B.A. in economics and public policy from the University of Michigan, graduating with honors. He is also active as a mentor and volunteer with the Future Founders Foundation and the Big Shoulders Fund.
Oscar Moralez is a serial entrepreneur, university lecturer, mentor/coach, and venture capital investor based in Indiana. In 2020 he founded Boomerang Ventures, a venture studio and venture fund that provides a funding and resource platform for entrepreneurs to bring their healthcare ideas to life. He is also the founder and managing director of VisionTech Partners/VisionTech Angels; the largest angel investing group in Indiana and one of the largest and most active in the Midwest with a portfolio of over 60 companies and $25+ million in invested capital.
In 2002, Oscar founded and served as COO for BioStorage Technologies (BST), a venture-backed life
science services company, based in Indianapolis. BST was acquired in December 2015 by Brooks Life
Sciences for $127 million, and is now Azenta Life Sciences, (NASDAQ: AZTA).
Prior to starting BST, Oscar worked in various executive management roles in healthcare, with Covance
Clinical Laboratories, Mayo Medical Laboratories and Boulder Community Hospital.
In addition to his experience in startups, investing and capital formation, Oscar’s background includes
over twenty years of technical, operations and management experience in healthcare and life sciences
sectors. He currently serves on, or has served in the past, as a director for various for-profit and not-for-profit boards in Indiana including GeoH, OrthoPediatrics, SonarMed, Apricity, The Venture Club of Indiana, The Speak Easy, Leaf Software Solutions and the Indiana Center for Biomedical Innovation.
Oscar received his Bachelor of Science degree in medical technology from the University of Texas,
Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and an MBA from the University of Colorado in Denver. He
enjoys sports, traveling, photography and spending time with his family.
Having delivered business solutions around the world as an entrepreneur, executive, corporate innovator, investor and West Point Engineer – Patrick brings a global outlook to his entrepreneurial, investor and innovation pursuits. Prior to Render Patrick started and exited three technology companies in the software, health and data analytics space and served as the VP of Growth, Startups & Technology of a $100M Venture Capital fund of funds focused on corporate innovation – Patrick’s passion is to help be a Megaphone for the innovation Ecosystem in the Midwest & South, Help Startups grow & scale, and help large corporations innovate through startups. From Silicon Valley to the Targaw Valley in Afghanistan and from Rwanda to Rural America Patrick’s leadership and expertise in leadership and foundations are built on trust, transparency and communication. Patrick’s proficiency in moving organizations from activity to impact has been evident in accolades and exits and from being an Airborne Ranger to leading the National Policy Council for Innovation with the Application developers alliance in DC. He has been published internationally in books like the “Startup Blueprint – 7 Skills for Founders, builders and Leaders” and has keynoted events like SXSW talking Big Data and Ogilvy’s CommonHealth Worldwide Marketing Summit talking everything from Innovation, to healthcare to scaling from the battlefield to the boardroom.
Ariana McGee is the Founder and CEO of Navigate Maternity. NM has created a remote patient monitoring system for prenatal and postpartum patients. Mothers are dying and specifically, Black women are dying 3-4x the national average during childbirth and postpartum due to reactive care, data gaps, and bias. Ariana experienced the inequity in perinatal care after almost dying during childbirth with her fourth child.
As a healthcare leader in the medical device and biopharmaceutical industries (BD, Biogen, Genzyme, etc.) for the last 11 years, Ariana brings a wealth of knowledge and is uniquely positioned as a mother and healthcare leader to commercialize NM. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her husband, AJ, and their four little ones – Jade (5), Trey (3), Naomi (2), and Aliya (1). “We’re here to save the mamas and the babies.”
Omar Atia is an engineer. He started his career in consumer products after graduating from Purdue University, majoring in chemical engineering. Omar worked for and progressed within fortune 500 companies like Kraft, Conagra Foods, Mead Johnson and others.
After a long career in corporate America, Omar felt the desire to build something himself and started his entrepreneurial journey where he is now a Co-founder and CEO of ZeroCarb LYFE: a company that sells low carb, high protein foods and is on a mission to put the joy back into healthy eating.
Omar’s always been entrepreneurial ever since he was in grade school. Even when he was out of college and got a full time job at a great company, he actively partnered with an individual to open a restaurant. He always worked with a very entrepreneurial mindset and thought this is what he was born for. Which was what led him to take the jump from very secure pay checks to being an entrepreneur in 2013.
Omar believes that the biggest thing that could inspire others is the fact that he never doubted himself or the impact that he thought he would have. He’s always had this faith that no matter what happens, no matter how impossible things seem, if you believe in something and you have a mindset where you're stubborn and you're willing to read the market, read the signs, pivot and be humble to adjust any decision that the world is telling you isn't the right decision.
As long as you have that mindset and never give up, it doesn't matter what the struggle is or what the low point looks like. There's going to be a high point that eventually presents itself.
Victor is the founder and managing partner of M25, the most active venture firm in the Midwest. He grew up in rural Indiana before moving to Chicago to study economics at the University of Chicago. Throughout K-12 and college, Victor loved entrepreneurship and built both a vending machine business and a scooter company, before cofounding UChicago’s first student-run venture fund. A Kauffman Fellow (Class 22) and former leader in Hyde Park Angels, Victor founded M25 in 2015 and quickly grew it to become the go-to preseed/seed VC firm in the Midwest with over 130 portfolio companies in 25 cities across 11 states. Victor has invested in 14 startups HQ'd in Indiana and sits on the board of Authenticx (Carmel), Cheddar (Bloomington) and Titlewise (Clarksville).
Tracy is the Founder and Managing Principal of Graham Allen Partners, a private equity firm focused on buying and building technology-enabled companies in secondary markets. He leverages his 27-year history of successfully acquiring and operating businesses to provide strategic and operational support to a growing portfolio of small and middle-market companies. He is currently focused on leveraging analytics and artificial intelligence to help companies evolve via digital transformation.
Prior to Graham Allen Partners, Tracy co-founded GramTel, Inc. (a managed data center provider) in partnership with The Jordan Company (a private equity firm headquartered in New York). As CEO of GramTel, he was responsible for the company’s strategic direction as well as aligning all internal and external resources to gain market share in the small and mid-sized business market. He led the company to become the largest provider of managed data center services in the state of Indiana and the largest privately held provider in the Midwest. In 2007, he completed the successful sale of GramTel to Cincinnati Bell, Inc. (a publicly traded telecommunications company).
Prior to founding GramTel, he founded Internet Services Management Group, Inc (“ISMG”) where he led the company to become the second largest privately held ISP in the United States (acquiring and integrating 23 companies).
Tracy earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Notre Dame and attended the Indiana University Graduate School of Education. Tracy has a long history of community service, currently serving on the boards of the University of Notre Dame and 1st Source Bank, while supporting several other civic organizations.
Laura Hill is the Chief Investment Officer at Advocate Health, a mission-driven non-profit healthcare system headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, with a combined footprint across six states – Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, North Carolina, South Carolina and Wisconsin. Advocate strives to help people live well, with a focus on clinical safety, health equity, affordability, next generation workforce development, learning, and sustainability.
Laura joined Advocate Health Care in 2014 to help build out Advocate’s in-house investment team and to oversee the alternative investments portfolio, comprised of private equity, real assets, and hedge funds. Laura also co-founded the organization’s diverse investment manager program. Prior to joining Advocate in 2014, Laura was a Vice President at Denali Capital LLC, where she managed a portfolio of senior secured bank loans, with an emphasis on middle market sponsor-backed transactions. Laura joined Denali from the Transaction Advisory Services group at Ernst & Young LLP.
Laura was born at IU Health Ball Hospital and spent her school years next door at Burris and the Indiana Academy, before attending Indiana University, where she received a B.S. in Business Economics & Public Policy. She received her MBA from Northwestern University and spent nearly 20 years in the Chicago area before recently choosing to return to Muncie with her family.
Laura currently resides in Muncie with her husband Adam, three children, a golden retriever, and a grumpy tomcat.
G. Scott Tabor, CAIA, is a Senior Vice President with FEG Investment Advisors (FEG) focused on private equity. In this capacity, he is responsible for sourcing, conducting due diligence, and monitoring private equity and special situations investment opportunities. Mr. Tabor has been an investment professional since 2004 and joined FEG in 2012. Prior to joining FEG, he worked as a senior investment analyst with Fort Washington Capital Partners and as an Analyst with Bear, Stearns & Co. At FEG, he has developed new relationships, evaluated co-investment and secondary opportunities, and led in-depth due diligence on primary fund commitments.
Mr. Tabor earned a B.A. in economics from Cornell University and an M.B.A. in Finance and Accounting from Indiana University. He is a member of the CAIA Association.
Ryan Locke serves as the Vice President of Venture Finance for the state. In this role, Ryan oversees IEDC’s capital access efforts and related programs to fill entrepreneurial finance gaps, induce private sector investment, and ensure adequate access to capital for Indiana’s scaling young companies. Ryan previously worked at the Office of the Indiana Treasurer of State as Deputy Treasurer, Chief of Staff, General Counsel, and as the Executive Director for the Board for Depositories. He oversaw and provided legal support for both the day-to-day operations of the Treasurer’s Office and all the entities, programs, boards, and special projects within the Treasurer’s scope including, but not limited to, serving as designee to the Indiana Bond Bank and Indiana Finance Authority boards. Prior to joining the Treasurer’s Office, Ryan was legal counsel to the Indiana State Police where he focused on privacy, pensions, procurement, and marijuana.
He was born and raised in Carmel, Indiana and attended high school at Brebeuf Jesuit in Indianapolis. He earned his B.A. from IUPUI and his J.D. magna cum laude from Valparaiso University Law School.
Ryan has been investing and advising technology companies for over 20 years. He leads the Enterprise Software and Vertical SaaS industry practice for Edison. He is a member of the Investment Committee, and helps lead and support the firm’s Governance Center of Excellence and Director Network (EDN). He is focused on partnering with founders and entrepreneurs to build world-class companies that deliver amazing products. He manages growth equity investments within supply chain & logistics, enterprise infrastructure, data management, go-to-market software, digital commerce, verticalized marketplaces, and workplace technology segments.
Ryan is most actively involved and currently serves as a Director of 15Five, the holistic performance management company that helps HR leaders creates better managers and successful employees; Director of Overhaul, a cloud-based risk management solution that optimizes supply chain visibility, integrity, and security for large enterprises; Terminus, the leading B2B go-to-market suite and account-based marketing (ABM) platform; TPC, the world's largest and most trusted brand for pre-owned bikes; and former lead investor and Director of TripleLift, the advertising technology company reinventing ad placement one medium at a time.
Ryan has led investments and served as a director and observer for dozens of high-growth technology companies. He joined the investment team in 2005 helping to lead several successful Fintech investments, building out Edison’s industry-leading portfolio. Ryan joined Edison in 2003 to establish the firm’s sourcing and business development team. Prior to Edison, Ryan was an Associate for financial technology and services company, SEI (NASDAQ: SEIC).
Kelli N. Jones is Co-Founder & General Partner for Sixty8 Capital, a seed-stage fund for Black and Latinx entrepreneurs. For the last 5 years, Kelli has led the transformation of a more diverse tech ecosystem in Indiana, through her organization Be Nimble Foundation. Since starting Be Nimble, she has trained 40+ Black and LatinX founders through her accelerator, upskilled career transitioners into tech careers, and has invested over $1M in capital and start-up resources. Before launching Be Nimble and Sixty8 Capital, Kelli was program manager for Techstars Heritage Group Accelerator and Director of People, Culture, and Brand for Givelify. Prior to relocating to Indianapolis, IN in 2017, she lived in New York and Los Angeles, and was the founder of an experiential marketing company specializing in events and go-to-market strategy for consumer tech companies, and later lead sales, events, and marketing for venture-backed digital media brands HipHopDX, Blavity, and Afrotech. In 2022, Kelli was honored by the Indianapolis Business Journal as one of the 250 most influential business leaders, and Sixty8 Capital was honored as Investor of The Year at the Techpoint Mira Awards. Kelli is also civically engaged, serving on the boards of IMPACT Central Indiana, Employ Indy, Vanguard Collegiate of Indianapolis, and The Venture Club’s NextGen group.s been investing and advising technology companies for over 20 years. He leads the Enterprise Software and Vertical SaaS industry practice for Edison. He is a member of the Investment Committee, and helps lead and support the firm’s Governance Center of Excellence and Director Network (EDN). He is focused on partnering with founders and entrepreneurs to build world-class companies that deliver amazing products. He manages growth equity investments within supply chain & logistics, enterprise infrastructure, data management, go-to-market software, digital commerce, verticalized marketplaces, and workplace technology segments.
After serving as a healthcare leader for 20 years, Amy Brown could no longer ignore a glaring problem – organizations were storing and ignoring the rich unsolicited insights buried within the human conversations (phone, chat, and email) happening with customers every day. In 2018 she left her corporate job to start Authenticx and fulfill her mission of helping humans understand humans.
Dirk Shaw is a seasoned digital executive with a wide breadth of experience spanning Fortune 500 companies to innovative start-ups. Currently, he is the CMO and Co-founder of SecondSight, a groundbreaking platform revolutionizing the world of cyber underwriting. With SecondSight, Dirk is reinventing how carriers evaluate digital risks and vulnerabilities, enabling businesses to secure insurance coverage tailored to their unique digital risk profiles.
Deeply motivated by the "Next Shift", Dirk thrives on the convergence of operations, technology, commerce, and culture. He believes in harnessing the creative possibilities that emerge from this convergence to reimagine all aspects of business and drive forward digital innovation.
Prior to co-founding SecondSight, Dirk held various executive roles such as Chief Digital Officer at AZ Crown, SVP of Emerging Content at Olson, and Principal of Digital Strategy at Trade NTE. He has an impressive track record which includes transforming Ford's in-house agency into a global news and content marketing hub, and helping Vignette pivot successfully in the wake of the dotcom crash.
Beyond his corporate roles, Dirk has a deep foothold in the startup world. At AZ Crown, he led the development of a shared services model to support seed-stage tech companies with business models, positioning, go-to-market strategy, and product design.
Renowned for his design thinking approach, Dirk is skilled at dreaming up new possibilities and weaving them into engaging experiences that fuel adoption. He constantly scouts the digital horizons of tomorrow, prepping his teams and strategies to confidently navigate and excel in these terrains. His diverse skillset, which includes product design, customer experience, and emerging tech, positions him at the cutting edge of digital innovation.
An adept storyteller and strategist, Dirk emphasizes organic growth and consumer engagement. His unique approach deploys data, experience planning, storytelling, and conversational interfaces to solve business problems and inspire action, demonstrating his ability to adapt to and create solutions in a rapidly evolving digital landscape. His professional journey underscores his ability to lead, innovate, and adapt, consistently pushing boundaries in the digital realm.