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National campaign aims to boost investment in tech companies in America’s heartland

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“All the net job creation in this country comes from young startups, not from small business, not from big business—the Fortune 500 companies—it’s these young, fast growing startups. If you want to create jobs around the country, you’ve got to back the startups around the country, not just on the coast.” – Steve Case on MSNBC’s Morning Joe

Last year, 80% of venture capital went to just three states—Massachusetts, New York, and California—and one nationwide effort is trying to change all of that and help boost the economic landscape of the heartland.

J.D. Vance, a California venture capitalist and author of The New York Times bestseller “Hillbilly Elegy,” has joined Revolution’s “Rise of the Rest” campaign, co-founded by Washington-area business leaders Steve Case, Ted Leonsis and Donn Davis.

Case and Vance appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe Wednesday to discuss their new effort to bring venture capital to promising technology companies outside of established urban tech hubs.

Launched three years ago, the campaign conducted bus tours to 26 cities to get a sense of what is happening and try to stimulate those startup communities. But now they are ready to take it to the next level and provide these other cities with the capital and opportunities that they need to explode the potential that is already there and help it grow.

As Case was quoted on Morning Joe, “Talent is evenly distributed, but opportunity is not.”