Crews Center for Entrepreneurship Tops List of Memphis-Area Business Accelerators

October 4, 2019 - The Crews Center for Entrepreneurship, the University of Memphis' full-scale entrepreneurial resource for students and faculty, was recently named among the top five business accelerators by the Memphis Business Journal.

Mike Hoffmeyer, director of the Crews Center, has led the acceleration effort with more than 100 active entrepreneurial students in the current fiscal year alone. "We talk with a wide variety of students from all the UofM colleges with several goals in mind — starting a business, cultivating an idea or providing resources that may be hard for the entrepreneur to come by," he said. "We are seeing unprecedented growth in the number of students and faculty we help on a monthly basis."

Businesses accelerating through the Centers include Belltower Artisans, Compass, Mimoma, PetsFurU, TinkerTech, PartyLineVR and SynapseFI, where $50 million in venture capital was raised to the support the new company.

The Crews Center has various programs available, including the Entrepreneur Residency Program, a six-stage program on how to progress a business; ImagineU, an intense business/social innovation accelerator; and CEO (Collegiate Entrepreneurs' Organization), a premier entrepreneur network with 250 chapters across the U.S.

The Crews Center for Entrepreneurship is located at 3618 Walker Ave., just west of Patterson. To schedule an opportunity to talk with the Crews Center or attend an event, please email crewscenter@memphis.edu or call Lisa Threadgill, program coordinator at 901.678.1597.