NEW ORLEANS — Steve Case has been on a barnstorming tour of the United States in a red bus that reads “The Rise of the Rest.” You would be forgiven for thinking he was running for office. The co-founder of AOL has joined forces with J.D. Vance, the author of “Hillbilly Elegy,” to promote entrepreneurship across the United States and seed investments in cities often overlooked by venture capital funds. In doing so, the two men have recruited a list of who’s who in business, including Jeff Bezos of Amazon and Charles and David Koch of Koch Industries, to be part of their investment fund. The fund is part of a larger movement to reimagine company towns, and a challenge for venture capital funds to look beyond California, New York and Massachusetts — the three states that receive 75 percent of venture capital in the United States.

Source: New York Times December 13, 2018 07:07 UTC