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Key Takeaways Founders in the South, known as the “Third Coast,” have long valued capital efficiency, excelling in generating higher returns with less investment.
MOIC (Multiple on Invested Capital) has become a critical metric for investors, highlighting the financial discipline of Southeastern startups over Silicon Valley’s high-speed, high-burn approach.
Lower costs of living and operations in cities like Houston, New Orleans and Raleigh offer Third Coast founders a strategic advantage in the venture capital environment.
Being from New Orleans, it’s common to see professionals who have moved away come back for personal reasons. But I recently caught up with a founder over coffee who refreshingly told me something different: “Did you know founders in the Southeast are more capital efficient than those from the West Coast?”
That line stuck with me. Not because “capital efficiency” is now the buzzword of the moment, but because it confirmed something I’ve felt for a long time but never quite put into words: Founders in the South have always been building the way investors are realizing is much more impactful than previous strategies. Translation: What’s new to investors has been our operating reality for years. And that gap? That’s the opportunity.
Investors today are far more focused on how efficiently startups grow, not just how fast, and one metric has quietly emerged as the “North Star” of this shift: the Burn Multiple.
The “Third Coast” — stretching from East Texas through the Carolinas — has been building with this discipline for years. Out of necessity, not trend. When you don’t have the luxury of investors that push you to grow by any means necessary, you learn to scale smartly. Which is why Burn Multiple feels like a home-field advantage in places like Houston, New Orleans and Raleigh.
Related: You’re Growing Fast — But Is Your Money Keeping Up? Here’s the Capital Strategy You Need.
This brings us to MOIC — but what exactly is it?
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