There’s a question that has quietly organized economic development strategy for decades: “How do we attract investment?”
It’s a reasonable question. But I think it’s the one worth replacing.
The right question is harder, and it’s the one that changes outcomes: “How do we build the capacity to invest in ourselves?”
My friend Erika Haskins, Founder and Managing Partner – Sonder VC has been writing and speaking about this with clarity and conviction, and it’s been striking a nerve for me. Not because it’s new thinking, but because it names something I’ve watched communities struggle with for years without a framework to address it. What she describes as community capital isn’t just a financing mechanism. It’s an expression of economic self-determination. And that distinction matters enormously.
Economic self-determination is about who gets to make decisions. Who benefits. Who has a stake in what gets built and why. For too long, those decisions have been made somewhere else, by people who don’t live here, don’t know this community, and won’t be here when the consequences play out. Capital flows in, extracts value and moves on. And the community is left measuring progress in jobs created while wealth accumulates elsewhere.
Here’s the thing: wealth doesn’t trickle down. It doesn’t trickle anywhere. It accumulates, and without local capital infrastructure, it accumulates outside the community that generated it. That’s not an accident. It’s the predictable result of a system where outside investors make the calls.
The communities that will outperform are the ones that build the confidence and infrastructure to back their own future.
What changes when capital is locally organized? Decision-making becomes more durable because it’s rooted in real knowledge of place. Investment goes to founders and ideas that broader markets haven’t discovered yet because local investors recognize value early. Returns circulate back into the ecosystem instead of leaving it. And growth starts happening with communities rather than simply around them.
That’s what economic self-determination actually looks like in practice. Not a slogan. A structure.
What This Looks Like for Tampa Bay
This is exactly why Gazelle Ventures exists.
Tampa Bay has everything it takes to be a breakout region: the talent, the industry diversity, the momentum, the quality of life that keeps people here. What it has historically lacked is a locally rooted, relationship-driven investment vehicle that can recognize value before broader markets do. That’s not a knock on the region. It’s an enormous opportunity.
Gazelle Ventures is designed to be that vehicle and we’re building a fund that is as intentional about where capital flows as it is about what it finances. These are the sectors where Tampa Bay has genuine competitive depth.
Our geographic focus is the eight-county Tampa Bay region, full stop. That’s not a limitation. That’s a thesis. Because when investment is rooted in place, when the fund managers live here, when advisors are embedded in the community, when LPs are local institutions and individuals who want to see this region win, something different happens. Capital starts making decisions with the long view. Founders get connected to networks that move the needle. And the returns, when they come, stay in the ecosystem and compound.
This is what Erika means when she talks about communities developing the capital confidence to back their own future. It’s not idealism. It’s strategy. Locally aligned capital infrastructure, meaning local participation, coordinated institutions, trusted networks, and investment vehicles deeply enough embedded to recognize value early, is what separates communities that grow with their people from communities that grow around them.
The Metrics Have to Change
One of the sharpest observations Erika raises is the question of what we’re actually measuring. Jobs created sounds like progress. But sometimes it’s extraction with good PR. The more honest set of questions looks different:
How do we build conditions for local ownership to scale? How do we structure deals so that residents are building wealth, not just earning wages? How do we measure wealth-building and not just economic activity?
At Gazelle, we don’t have all the answers, but we’re asking those questions in every conversation we have. With founders. With institutions. With the investors who are considering becoming part of this fund. Because the investors who join us aren’t just providing capital. They’re part of building the infrastructure that makes the next generation of Tampa Bay companies possible.
The shift is already happening, from chasing capital to organizing it. Tampa Bay has the pieces. We’re building the architecture to connect them.
Ownership is what separates economic activity from economic power.
If that’s a mission that resonates with you, We’d love to talk.
Kim Vogel • Partner & Co-Founder, Gazelle Ventures