Hey.
Welcome to ATL Grind.
I’m Andrew(your host) who’ll be showing you the best events, news, jobs, and more in Atlanta’s business world. Let’s get started.
The Direction of Atlanta’s Startup Ecosystem: Where Are We Going? lands May 14 from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. in Buckhead, with the exact location provided after registration. JTech is putting Andrew Levy, Chris Moreno, Wesley Pergament, Brian Rosenzweig, and moderator Holly Beilin in one room to talk capital, policy, and what Atlanta builders need next. Read more here.
Atlanta Technology Angels May Member Meeting lands May 19 from 5:30 to 8:00 p.m. at Atlanta Tech Village in Buckhead, with a virtual option. The room is built for accredited investors and first time guests who want to see pre screened companies and the diligence process up close. Read more here.
CREATE-X Spring Startup Launch Showcase lands May 21 at 5:00 p.m. at The Biltmore Ballrooms in Midtown. Georgia Tech will put 30 Spring Startup Launch teams in front of investors, alumni, operators, and ecosystem partners for hands on demos and founder conversations. Read more here.
Honnie Korngold is building against the easiest version of Georgia film: wait for outside productions, hope the studio calendar fills, and call it an industry.
Her bet is different. Georgia can be more than a cheaper place to shoot. It can be a place where stories, crews, training, production models, and distribution experiments get built closer to the ground.
Korngold is the founder of CineVantage, a film and television company based at Athena Studios in Athens. The path started far from a soundstage. She studied business, worked at a 2,000-acre event venue in Southern California, then owned a travel company building custom trips at serious scale, including chartered cruises with 2,000 people.
That work led to a television series. Networks saw her storytelling ability and pushed her toward a show. Travel with Spirit aired for seven seasons, giving Korngold the production education she never got formally. Commercial work followed, then documentaries, then features.
Now the work runs through a small ecosystem at 900 Athena Drive: CineVantage, PhilanthroFilms, and Georgia StoryLab. PhilanthroFilms, a nonprofit started in 2020, is the education and workforce side of the operation. It is focused on students and young filmmakers who may not already have family money, industry contacts, or a clean entry point into production. Georgia StoryLab sits next to it as the business building piece: a place for production companies, emerging filmmakers, and local creative talent to build Georgia projects together instead of waiting for a project to arrive from Los Angeles.
CineVantage’s slate is built around true stories. Northern Lights, now in active development, follows the Barrow Whalers, an Alaska football program above the Arctic Circle, and includes Terry Crews and Maria Menounos. Korngold says the project is planned to shoot in Georgia. Repair the Breach recently played to sold out theaters, the kind of early filmmaker bet Korngold thinks the modern industry usually waits too long to make.
The timing matters. Georgia’s film and TV production spend has cooled from its peak, falling from $4.4 billion in FY2022 to $2.3 billion in FY2025. Korngold does not treat that as a reason to retreat. In her view, cheaper space, easier studio access, and more accessible production tools create an opening for smaller teams to make serious work closer to home.
She used to make films on a Kodak camera as a child, around 8 or 9 years old. The work has gotten bigger since then, but it still feels the same to her in a way.
Read more here.
Atlas
Atlas sits at 88 West Paces Ferry Road NW inside The St. Regis Atlanta and is led by chef Freddy Money. It’s held Michelin one star recognition from 2023 to 2025, runs dinner Tuesday through Saturday, and gives you the option of à la carte or tasting menu without completely emptying your checking account.
Read more here.
Director of Customer Journey Operations at Flock Safety. Hybrid in Atlanta. Lead operational strategy for the customer experience function at one of the city’s most watched growth companies. Apply here.
Sales Engineer at Calendly. Hybrid in Atlanta. Pre sales technical role at the Atlanta born scheduling company. Apply here.
Account Executive, Mid-Market at Salesloft. Hybrid in Atlanta. Sell the revenue orchestration platform into closed won enterprise customers. Apply here.
Director, Customer Success at Mailchimp / Intuit. Hybrid in Atlanta. Lead a CS team from the Ponce City Market HQ. Apply here.
Director, Corporate Strategy at Delta Air Lines. Onsite in Atlanta. M&A and strategic planning seat at Delta’s headquarters. Apply here.
Director, Investor Relations at The Home Depot. Hybrid in Atlanta. IR role at the Atlanta based Fortune 30 retailer. Apply here.
Atlanta’s soccer buildout just moved from stadium energy to permanent infrastructure.
U.S. Soccer officially opened the Arthur M. Blank U.S. Soccer National Training Center in Fayette County on May 7, giving the federation its first permanent home in its 113-year history. The facility sits south of Atlanta near Trilith and will serve as headquarters for U.S. Soccer staff and all 27 U.S. national teams.
The scale is eery. The campus spans roughly 200 acres, with 17 outdoor playing surfaces, including 13 natural grass fields, two artificial turf fields, and two sand pitches for beach soccer. SaportaReport reported more than 400,000 square feet of facilities and about 400 U.S. Soccer staff working from the site.
The Atlanta business angle is Arthur Blank and Dan Cathy. Blank anchored the project with a $50 million lead gift, while Cathy donated the land. Michele Kang also backed the project with women’s-specific support. Philanthropy, corporate power, land, and long-term civic positioning in one package.
It also lands at the right time. Mercedes-Benz Stadium will host eight matches during the 2026 FIFA World Cup, Atlanta already has one of Major League Soccer’s strongest attendance cultures, and U.S. Soccer moved its operating center from Chicago to metro Atlanta.
The point is not only that national teams will train in Fayetteville. The bigger move is that Atlanta now has the institutional home for American soccer, sitting beside Trilith Studios, Atlanta United, the coming NWSL team, and the World Cup calendar.
Read more here.
602 Moreland Ave NE
Asking $799,900 in Poncey-Highland. 4 beds, 2 baths, 2,104 square feet. It has a covered front porch with stone columns, refinished original hardwoods, quartz countertops, stainless appliances, a new roof, new windows, and walkable access to Freedom Park, the BeltLine, Morningside, Virginia-Highland, and Little Five Points. Check it out here.
5 other headlines to snack on:
ReFiBuy closed an oversubscribed $13.6 million seed round led by NewRoad Capital Partners, with Atlanta’s Silicon Road Ventures and Knoll Ventures in the syndicate. AI shopping is becoming an investor category. Read more here.
The Ember Fellowship, founded by Atlanta entrepreneur Eileen Lee, selected 33 fellows from nearly 500 applicants and is placing them into startup and growth stage roles across Atlanta, Birmingham, Detroit, and Baltimore. Read more here.
BD4, from Atlanta entrepreneur Gregg Bedol, opened its waitlist for a business development platform built for attorneys, consultants, wealth managers, and other relationship driven professionals. The pitch is practical: keep the pipeline moving when client work gets busy. Read more here.
Grady Health System opened a 20,000-square-foot freestanding emergency department in South Fulton with 16 treatment bays, pharmacy, imaging, and lab services. Southside healthcare access remains an economic infrastructure issue. Read more here.
That’s it.
What’d you think? Reply and share some thoughts.
See you next Tuesday.
Andrew