Leaders highlight programs to help startups, boost innovation

Area executives recently discussed some of the projects their companies are investing in to support entrepreneurs and innovation. The panel discussion was part of a Fayetteville luncheon that included the release of the annual State of the Northwest Arkansas Region Report.

Panelists included Stuart Scott, chief innovation officer and executive vice president at Lowell-based J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Heidi Soloman, vice president of global strategy at Springdale-based Tyson Foods, and Chris Sultemeier, operating partner at New Road Capital Partners.

“I’ve always been chasing innovation from a career standpoint,” Scott said. “Over time, I’ve found ways to bring innovation from within an organization as well as ways to partner with universities… and also just the startup community itself. I love startups. I love just that passion and energy that they bring. So, it’s about creating an ecosystem… of all those things that really gets me excited.”

Soloman said a top strategic issue that large corporations face is increasing top-line revenue.

“That has to be driven by innovation and really the spark of things that we’re seeing from disruption,” she said. “Without a strong startup community, without a strong entrepreneurial community, the ecosystem here is challenged, I would say. It’s up to all of us to really bring it together and help support growth and top-line growth for our large corporations.”

When he worked for Walmart, Sultemeier said the company looked to bring innovation to the area. He said he learned about Plug and Play on a trip to Silicon Valley. Over the past five years, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based venture capital firm Plug and Play has focused on supply chain investments and accelerators in Northwest Arkansas. Plug and Play recently launched a health accelerator in Northwest Arkansas.

“Their whole thing was how do you bring Silicon Valley in a box to Northwest Arkansas,” Sultemeier said. “So, that’s what we tried to do with bringing them.”

The effort to bring Plug and Play to the area was a collaboration that included the Northwest Arkansas Council, UA and Walton Family Foundation, he said.

“That was all an effort back in ’18 to get innovation going more and more in this area.”

Soloman explained the work Tyson Ventures, the venture capital arm of Tyson Foods, has done to support entrepreneurs. Three years ago, the company started to host Demo Day to allow startups to pitch ideas to the company. This year, the company selected five startups to work with Tyson Foods to solve problems and receive mentorship from the company.

Scott also described J.B. Hunt’s work to support startups and innovation. Most recently, the company announced a collaboration with venture lab UP.Labs to launch up to six startups over the next three years. UP.Labs is a part of UP.Partners, a multi-modal transportation innovation and investment firm.

“We, as J.B. Hunt, will provide seed funding,” Scott said. “UP.Partners, as a venture capital group, will provide that seed funding, but those ideas will be generated from what are some of the pain points that J.B. Hunt has or what are some of the things that represent our industry. So, these are independent companies, will be independently run, but… we will be side-by-side with them going through 100 ideas of what we think we can go start up and solve for our industry.

“We’re doing it because we feel like we can build … $100 million … several hundred million dollar valuation of a company over a few years, using J.B. Hunt as a first early adopter.”

Sultemeier said one of the challenges for large companies working with startups is to be patient and understand that it will take time for the startup to scale. Also, he said startups must invest in large companies and work with other companies “so that you don’t put all of your eggs in that one basket. It’s the same thing for those large companies. You’ve got to always be sensitive to that balance of how much of business you’re representing. So, it’s a little bit of a delicate dance, but the big companies have got to be patient with the startup companies.”