46 Venture Capital launches UA-focused fund targeting early-stage founders

Tracy Poole says a traditional venture capital (VC) fund is typically only as good as the fund manager’s network. Recently, he tapped into a pretty big one with a strategic connection to the University of Arkansas, which includes a strong alumni network, research collaborations and access to cutting-edge technologies.

Poole is a co-founder and managing partner of 46 Venture Capital, a VC management firm based in Tulsa with an office in downtown Bentonville. A few weeks ago, 46VC announced the launch of Dickson & Main Fund I, a venture that holds huge potential for early-stage tech founders with a strategic connection to the UA and broader Arkansas entrepreneurial ecosystem.

“When we roll out a fund like Dickson & Main, which serves the system-wide UA community, we’re locking ourselves into a pretty motivated and loyal group of people,” Poole said.

Dickson & Main will support UA-affiliated founders by providing funding and leveraging the university community’s resources to aid their ventures. The selection criteria are based on their innovative ideas, potential for growth and alignment with the fund’s strategic goals. Poole said the goal for the first fund is $15 million.

“We’ll plan to do a second fund approximately 18 months after we close the first fund, and we’re betting it will be twice the size,” he said. “And we’ll keep going.”

Poole, Chuck Fuller and Jim Barsness are 46VC’s founders and managing partners. They launched the firm two years ago.

“We’d been investing in private deals as angel [investors] for over 20 years and decided the way to scale that was to bring in outside money and grow the pot bigger,” Poole said. He explained that part of the reason was the region’s increased level of sophistication.

“We started to see more investable companies, which was something new for us,” he said.

Dickson & Main is 46VC’s fifth fund. It is similar to Hurricane Ventures, designed to be a funding catalyst for University of Tulsa student, faculty, staff and alumni startups, but on a much larger scale.

The UA’s Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation (OEI) will play a pivotal role as the university’s liaison to Dickson & Main. Through its venture intern program, OEI will actively support efforts to raise awareness about the importance of early-stage investment and provide students with educational opportunities in due diligence and fund management.

“For an early-stage founder, access to capital can be a major challenge in an ecosystem outside of the country’s coastal tech hubs,” said OEI’s executive director Phil Shellhammer. “By recruiting investors who care about Arkansas and investing in startups that are part of our ecosystem, Dickson & Main will fill an important gap while providing a platform for our students to learn about this dynamic career path in finance.”

As the fund manager, 46VC has created an easy way for accredited investors to support the university community and the local tech economy.

“This offers private investors unique access to technology from a top-tier Carnegie R1 research university and a robust ecosystem,” said Connor Sitton, 46VC’s head of operations. He’s a Tulsa native and a UA grad. “The opportunity to plug directly into technologies in verticals such as retail value chain, logistics, ag-tech, health tech and several others is unrivaled.

“All the top founders in these verticals will want Dickson & Main on their cap tables, which will further augment the power of the network.”