Embarc Collective to expand presence in St. Petersburg

A Tampa startup hub is making a significant investment in Pinellas County.

Embarc Collective and private equity firm Blake Investment Partners Thursday unveiled a partnership that will allow the organization to expand its presence in St. Petersburg. As part of the effort, Blake has made a five-year commitment to provide office space to Embarc Collective.

“We have almost a dozen early-stage startups that are members of Embarc Collective that are headquartered in St. Pete,” Embarc Collective CEO Tim Holcomb told the Catalyst. “Our platform is a grassroots offering to early-stage founders that has historically delivered real value both in terms of increasing survival rates for those companies that are at the very earliest stage, as well as providing the engagement support services that help founders validate their business model and scale their business across the state and around the country.”

He said that the partnership will allow Embarc Collective to provide better access to its services.

“It’s also, frankly, a recognition that the ecosystem is growing and our platform has the potential to serve and support a larger number of early-stage tech startups in St. Pete and across Pinellas County.”

Established in 2019, Embarc Collective has worked with more than 300 founders and co-founders across over 145 startups. Businesses the organization supports in Pinellas County include Spontivly, BlockSpaces, Cvergenx, Knack, Immigr8, CooperCast, CaresLink and SmartCare360.

“The first thing we’ll do is provide a physical location for companies that are a part of the Embarc Collective community that have operations in St. Pete and Pinellas County,” Holcomb said. “We’ll also run some of our curricular programming as well as our internal community workshops in St. Pete as well.”

Blake Investment Partners founder and CEO Thompson Whitney Blake reached out to Holcomb about seven months ago. Holcomb explained that Blake Investment Partners’ offer to provide office space and ongoing support was a “catalyst to get us to make that commitment to come across the bay.”

“It’s our first effort to establish an extension of our core offering at the physical location we have in Tampa,” he said. “So, we’re very excited that St. Pete is the first location that we’ve decided to plant a flag of sorts.”

Holcomb added that a specific site has not been determined yet. However, the space should be between 3,000 to 5,000 square feet.

In July, City of St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch selected the Pinellas County Housing Authority and The Burg Bid LLC, which is led by Blake Investment Partners, to redevelop the Historic Gas Plant District. Holcomb added that “there is potential down the road for Embarc to co-locate at the new Gas Plant development.”

“St. Petersburg is no longer an emerging innovation market; it is one of the most compelling places in the Southeast to build and scale a company,” said Blake in a prepared statement. “Bringing Embarc Collective’s proven platform, national network and access to capital to St. Pete is a major step forward for the founders building here today and the companies we want to attract tomorrow. This is bigger than a single announcement; it is about creating an enduring ecosystem for innovation, investment and economic growth and establishing St. Pete as a place where ambitious companies can become category leaders.”