Oracle × Nashville Entrepreneur Center

A place to keep this,
so we don't rebuild it from an email thread.

You asked us to split our asks into what's useful now and what's a longer build. This is that, kept current. Everything here has a time cost attached, because your people's hours are the scarce thing — not our enthusiasm.

Last updated August 19, 2026 · for Dougal Ballantyne and Steph Stanton

Who you'd be helping

The receipts

Same numbers as the briefing we sent ahead of your visit. Nothing restated, nothing inflated.

556founders served in 2025
$256M+revenue generated by accelerator alumni companies
1,935jobs created by alumni
113Project Healthcare alumni companies tracked

Alumni figures across 244 accelerator companies, self-reported. A 501(c)(3) founded in 2010, in the Trolley Barns downtown. By 2027, EC will help 1,000 entrepreneurs a year start and grow their companies.

Phase one

What we'd start now

Three things that could be on a calendar inside 30 days. If you only do the first one, this partnership is already real. Dated view of everything is below.

Start here

Advisors for the fall cohort

Founders bring real architecture problems. Your engineers tell them which of the two databases is right for the use case, and what not to build at all. This is the conversation our founders can't buy.

We need
3–5 engineers
Time
2 hours, once
When
October, cohort starts Sept 1
Where
41 Peabody Street
Phase one

One AI or cloud meetup

Hosted by your engineers, on a date that lands when founders are actually in the building. We'll send our founder calendar so you can pick the week rather than guess it.

We need
1–2 speakers
Time
90 minutes
When
Before October 31
Owner
Rob sends the calendar
Phase one

The Room

One conversation with someone moving Nashville forward, plus a founder showcase. Our board and closest supporters are there. Last one of the calendar year — and you're already on the list.

Status
You're invited
Time
2 hours
When
Tue Sept 22, Harding House
Contact
Lauren McWhirter

The calendar

Between now and Q2 2027

Everything already on our calendar, and where Oracle fits into each one. Most of these happen whether or not you join — that's the point. Pick what's useful and ignore the rest.

Something we're asking for Open invitation, no commitment Nothing needed from you
Sept 1Tuesday

Fall 2026 cohorts start

TakeOff and InFlight founders begin a 12-week program and are in the building from this date forward. This is the clock behind everything in phase one.

Oracle: nothing needed. It's just the reason October matters.
Sept 14–16Mon–Wed

3686

Nashville's entrepreneurship festival, run by Launch Tennessee. The week the whole state's startup community is downtown. First speakers were announced August 13. Details at attend3686.com.

Oracle: come. Tickets are public. If Oracle wants a presence beyond attending, that conversation goes through Launch Tennessee, not us — happy to make the introduction.
Sept 16Wednesday, 8–6

Brewing Connections Day

Our own pop-up inside 3686 week, at Monday Night Brewing in Neuhoff — a short walk from where you're officing. Seven sessions, free, register per session: AI data centers, customer-behavior signals, venture financing, building in public, free headshots, and a Founders of Color happy hour. Full schedule at brewingconnections.com.

Oracle: the lowest-effort day on this page. Walk over, grab a beer at what Dougal called his local, and hang out with founders for an hour — no role needed. There's also an AI data centers session already on the agenda; if one of your engineers wants it, or wants to sit on it, say so this week and it's yours. Either way, this is the fastest path from Tuesday's conversation to an Oracle person in front of founders.
Sept 22Tuesday

The Room — Harding House

One conversation with someone moving Nashville forward, plus a founder showcase. Board members and closest supporters. The last one of the calendar year.

Oracle: already invited — Sam sent it August 18 and Lauren McWhirter, our VP of Investor Relations, has you on the list. Bring guests, or send someone in your place.
Octoberdate open

Founder office hours with Oracle engineers

Four founders, 25 minutes each, back to back, on our campus. They bring a real architecture problem. Your people tell them what to build and what to stop worrying about.

Oracle: three to five engineers, two hours, once. This is the single ask on this page we'd pick if we could only pick one.
By Oct 31date open

First Oracle-hosted AI or cloud meetup

You offered to align this with our founder scheduling. We'll send the calendar so you can pick a week when founders are actually here rather than guessing at one.

Oracle: one or two speakers, 90 minutes, and a date. We handle promotion, registration, and the room.
Oct 19Monday evening

The NEXT Awards

Our annual celebration of what Nashville founders actually built this year — revenue, customers, jobs. At the Schermerhorn Symphony Center. Every founder, funder, and health system leader in the city, in one room, on one night. Details and tickets at ec.co/next-awards-2026.

Oracle: come. And if the donated-table-seats idea Steph raised is a yes, this is the obvious first test of it — in either direction.
Dec 3Thursday

Nashville Entrepreneur Day — GEODIS Park

Our biggest open-door day of the year: a few hundred founders, non-dilutive grants awarded on the spot, and the whole ecosystem in one concourse. If you want to see what Nashville's founder economy looks like at full scale, this is the day.

Oracle: come, and bring the engineers who've been hearing about this. Nothing to prepare — it's the single best afternoon to meet founders without a structure around it.
Novemberafter the first session

Does this work? — a 30-minute check-in

By November we'll know whether office hours produced anything a founder acted on. If it did, we schedule the winter session and it becomes standing. If it didn't, we say so and try something else.

Oracle: a next conversation on the calendar. We left Tuesday without one, and that's the only thing about that meeting we'd change.
Q1 2027Jan–Mar

An executive roundtable, by invitation

A closed room. Your AI or executive leadership on one side, a dozen founders and operators we choose on the other. No stage, no audience, no press. You made the point that access only works when someone scopes it — so let us scope it.

Oracle: one leader, 90 minutes, and a month that works. We build the list and keep it short.
Q1 2027and ongoing

LIGHT programming, with the Chamber and Global Health Connector

When we start programming LIGHT we bring the Nashville Area Chamber and Eric Thrailkill of Global Health Connector into the room. A company serving six million people abroad has to re-architect to serve sixty million here — that's a cloud and data problem before it's a market problem.

Oracle: the Oracle Health leader you mentioned, and whoever on the infrastructure side should hear this. We'll send materials that person can read cold.
Q2 2027Apr–Jun

Immersion visit at Oracle

We bring a cohort of healthcare founders onto your campus. We ran this format for 13 MIT Foundry Fellows in April 2026, and our cohorts already walk into Lifepoint Health, Ascension Saint Thomas, Ardent Health, HealthStream, and Amsurg. Bios go out ahead of every visit.

Oracle: confirmed in principle on August 18. What it needs now is a January check-in so it doesn't sit untouched for nine months.
Q2 2027same window

The Canadian delegation

We're working with the Canadian government to bring six to eight Canadian health startups here for a week — Project Healthcare, twelve weeks compressed into five days, so they can decide whether the U.S. market is worth it before spending a year finding out. It lands in the same window as your immersion visit, which is not an accident we planned but is one worth using.

Oracle: the same week, the same building, a second cohort of international founders. If the immersion visit happens, this could share it.

Dates verified as of August 19, 2026. 3686 is Launch Tennessee's event and its full schedule isn't public yet. Everything else here is ours, and if a date moves, this page moves with it. The full calendar of EC and community events — beyond what's relevant to Oracle — lives at ec.co/events.

The mechanic

What your people actually do

You said your largest Nashville hire so far is senior engineers and above, and that your leadership expects them in the community. Here is what that looks like in practice, so nobody has to guess what they're signing up for.

Office hours — 2 hours, once or twice a year

Four founders, 25 minutes each, back to back. They come with a problem. Your engineer tells them what they're doing wrong and what they don't need to worry about. No prep required.

Advisor — roughly 1 hour a month

Matched to one company for a cohort. Our advisor network is 200+ people and it's the reason founders come back. This is the deepest version and the one founders value most.

Speaker or meetup host — 90 minutes, one-off

A working session on a real topic, not a keynote. Right-sized for someone who doesn't yet know what they don't know.

Show up — an hour, whenever

Founder happy hours, demo days, the Toast. The lowest-effort version and not the least valuable one. Founders remember who was in the room.

Ways to invest

The other half, said once

You were clear that this shouldn't be a check-writing exercise, and we agree — which is why everything above this section is people and hours. But EC is a 501(c)(3), and the programs your team would plug into are paid for by companies that decided Nashville's founders were worth funding.

We're not asking today. This is here so it's findable when you want it, and so it never has to arrive as a surprise.

  • Program underwriting. Directly funds a cohort — the staff, the space, the advisors, the year of support that follows. Named, reported on, with founder outcomes attached.
  • LIGHT. Underwrites international companies' first year in the U.S. market. The Nashville Area Chamber is already in.
  • NEXT Awards. Our largest public moment. Sponsors are visible to every founder, funder, and health system leader in the city on one night.
  • Capital access and non-dilutive grants. We give founders money that doesn't cost them equity. Every dollar here goes to a company, not to us.

No numbers on this page on purpose. When it's the right time, the useful first step is probably the same one you described for Oracle Health — tell us who owns that decision, so we're not putting it in front of the wrong person. Donna Mattick, our Chief Strategic Alliances Officer, would be the counterpart.

Working list

Open items

Kept honest in both directions. Tell us what's wrong here and we'll fix it the same day.

EC owes Oracle

  • Our founder calendar, so you can pick a meetup date
  • LIGHT preview materials, written to be read cold
  • An answer to your question: what does a founder actually learn from someone at a company your size? You asked it, and it deserves a real answer before we ask for the calendar time.
  • Founder bios ahead of any session, as we do for every visit
  • NEXT Awards ticket details, before they sell out

Oracle owes EC

  • A name at Oracle Health
  • A yes or no on 3–5 engineers for October office hours
  • A date for the first meetup
  • Confirmation on donated table seats
  • Whoever owns the funding conversation, whenever that's useful

One thing we don't have yet and should: a next conversation on the calendar. An hour of agreement on August 18 produced a lot of yeses and no date. Name a week that works and we'll build around it.