“I didn’t start Unicoils to build 'just another hair brand.” I started it because women with textured hair—especially students like me—were doing everything right and still not seeing growth,” said Dajheonna Perry, Founder of Unicoils. Dajheonna is a Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business MBA alum, CREATE-X founder, and licensed cosmetologist growing Unicoils, a natural hair care brand focused on retention and scalp health.

‍Startup ecosystems have traditionally been measured by how much funding has been raised, the number of exits, or planned initial public offerings, but these only tell part of a larger story. Consider instead “Network Impact Accounting” and how it provides a framework for measuring the economic value created through trusted relationships inside innovation ecosystems.

Mehul Jasti, a computer science sophomore at Georgia Tech, isn’t leaving his academic goals up to luck. Instead, he developed JustLmk, an application that lets you be the first to know when availability or restrictions change so you can sign up for the courses you need to graduate on time.

On May 21, Georgia Tech's CREATE-X program filled the Georgian Ballroom of the Biltmore Innovation Center with energy as 26 newly launched startups showed off what they do. The room also began to fill with the investors, founders, and students eager to meet them.

A simple observation on Georgia Tech’s campus led Joseph Lee to rethink how people enter sales. AGORA turns everyday communication into a scalable, low-barrier training ground for building one of the workforce’s most valuable skills.

In Tech Square, startups and Fortune 500 companies work within blocks of each other. But proximity alone does not guarantee collaboration. That gap is where Engage operates.

Atlanta doesn’t need to reinvent community; it needs to activate it. The next phase of growth for the city’s startup ecosystem won’t come from more events, programming, or even capital. It will come from more people helping each other. And when people know who to connect, what a strong introduction looks like, and perceived risks are reduced, participation increases.

Deleon Technologies, a CREATE-X alumni company, is bringing daily metabolomics tracking of ten amino acids into homes by miniaturizing lab testing equipment and leveraging data-driven insights to provide athletes with personalized workout and recovery tips.

Askari Defense is building decentralized systems to counter autonomous threats, starting with drones. Now out of stealth, they are operating out of the Biltmore Innovation Center. The team is focused on tools designed for individual operators in the field.

When Martin So saw how outdated intelligence workflows still were, he set out to change them. Panoptica Technologies is using AI to modernize how analysts in the military process and act on data.

Inspire Placemaking Collective is shaping places that shape communities.

From the Biltmore Innovation Center, the firm planted its Atlanta office in Tech Square in April 2025, a full-circle move after drawing inspiration from the district years earlier.

Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD) affects around 20 million people in the United States. The only way to definitively treat PAD is through surgery. However, monitoring one’s health after surgery is expensive, requiring patients to return to hospitals, and there is still a 12.5-20% incidence of secondary blockage post-surgery. CREATE-X startup, VasSense, has a solution. The startup’s wearable device allows for at-home monitoring for second incidences, making post-surgical care accessible.  

Atlanta has always been a relationship city. Long before “community” became a startup buzzword, introductions powered Atlanta’s business ecosystem, building shared trust and informal networks that opened doors across industries. From real estate and logistics to fintech and SaaS, deals here rarely begin with cold outreach. They begin with, “You should meet…”

Most dress patterns and forms come in a base sizes, but do not reflect real people’s bodies and proportions. That’s where Your Form comes in. The startup uses 3D body scans to create custom-made dress forms and sewing patterns out of recycled materials, making fashion design sustainable and inclusive.

When Sabah Mohammed moved to Atlanta to build her career in architecture, she expected to be designing buildings, not drowning in paper. Yet in her job, she found herself lugging dozens of floor plan printouts onto construction sites. “I was working on a project, and we were struggling to collaborate; I’d have to print these giant sheets of paper just to share updates with my teammates and clients,” Mohammed recalls. The process felt inefficient and archaic. This frustration would soon spark an entrepreneurial journey.