David Cummings is the force behind many things in Atlanta. The Tallahassee, Florida-native moved to Atlanta in 2002 because a client of his first company was in the city. He then went on to start Pardot, a marketing automation startup he sold in 2012 for $95.5 million. That year, he turned around and bought a building in Buckhead that would later become Atlanta Tech Village, a hub for startup founders.
Through his investment firm Atlanta Ventures, Cummings has funded many startups in Atlanta that have gone on to grow rapidly. He invested $350,000 in a budding scheduling startup in 2014, Calendly. Tope Awotona, CEO and founder of Calendly, said Cummings "saw Calendly's full potential way back then" and took a risk on him. Cummings' funding was the only investment Calendly needed to grow, until Awotona raised $350 million in 2021 that valued his company at more than $3 billion.
Now, Cummings and his business partner Jon Birdsong are taking their entrepreneurial and investment prowess and applying it to 53 buildings in 10 city blocks in South Downtown.