Investment Strategy

C&E seeks high-growth companies (including minority-owned and women-owned businesses) that possess the ability to be transformational for the benefit of economic development in Tennessee and also generate high returns on invested capital for C&E’s stakeholders, including the State of Tennessee.

In addition to meeting TNInvestco program eligibility requirements (see TNInvestco Program), companies that fit C&E’s investment strategy will often have, among others, the following characteristics:

• Exceptional management team – Does the management team have demonstrated relevant industry experience and ability to scale an organization while generating strong investor returns?
• Large market opportunity with ability to achieve superior financial return – Does the proposed product or service target a sufficiently large addressable market; i.e., can this become a transformational business?
• Attractive unit economics – Does a high percentage of revenue come from recurring customer purchases and is that revenue sold at verifiably, high margin unit economics?
• Current business momentum with a scalable business model – Does the company have high near-term momentum and will the business be successful on a reasonable amount of invested capital?
• Appropriate concept risk – Is the amount of concept risk too great to evaluate in a manner consistent with the assessment of an appropriate risk/reward relationship?