The 2025 Venture 15 and Venture Asheville Honors was one to remember. Below we’ve pasted an excerpt of our Director of Venture Asheville, Jeffrey Kaplan’s, opening comments. For a brief recap, we’d like to share HatchWNC’s newsletter as well as a Reel from our colleagues at NEXT GEN.
“It’s good to back here with you all. And it’s lovely to return to form, as much as we had fun with our telethon-variety show last year, the rankings our back and the honors are back!
First I want to acknowledge that we are still deep into an uneven economic recovery. Exceptionally compounded by macro-economic factors including tariffs, interest rates, drops in tourism, immigration crackdowns, a childcare crisis, and for reasons I can’t understand, why gen z doesn’t drink beer.
Despite the tremendous uncertainty all around us, I’m frequently asked, “where do we go from here, what’s next for our ecosystem?”
I don’t have a crystal ball, but my mom is clairvoyant and her grandmother was considered a witch – that’s true. But you don’t need psychic abilities, tarot cards, or tea leaves…but there are at least 3 tea companies here that’ll sell you some…anyway – if you want to see what’s coming, where the economy is headed, look around this room.
Let me give you some data on the winners tonight: the average age of these startups in just 4 years old, same as my daughter. And notably, that means they are post-pandemic created ventures.
11 of the 15 ranked companies are first-time winners. More than half are woman, which has been true all but one year of this event, 2020.
Together they employ 296 individuals, with plans to add an additional 138 in 2026.
In 2025, they brought in $23 million in revenue.
Collective lifetime revenues are over $57 million.
Here’s what I see. In the history of what we do here, this is the youngest cohort ever, with expected lower revenues than we’ve seen in the past. Interesting, the job numbers are very close to past years.
That means the uncertainty you’ve been feeling is real. We are experiencing a significant inflection point in our shared story. That’s not a bad thing, it’s our reality. We are in a crucial moment, what we do now matters more than ever.
Luckily, I’m an optimist. Despite the odds, you in this room are building forward, creating jobs, diversifying our economy, manifesting the resilience so many of us aspire to. This is the future of Asheville. It’s right here around each of us. I couldn’t be more grateful to be in your presence this evening. Thank you for never quitting and inspiring us all to go further.”
-Jeffrey Kaplan, December 4, 2025
