Who We Are

We are 127,000 square feet of startup support on Chattanooga’s NorthShore – the largest business incubator in the state of Tennessee, and the third largest in the United States. A program of the Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce, we’re located in the Hamilton County Business Development Center (BDC) in downtown Chattanooga, the urban core of Hamilton County, Tennessee.

We help entrepreneurs achieve success through a three-year, progressive development program that capitalizes on the synergy of the BDC’s unique entrepreneurial ecosystem made up of about 50 startups businesses. We provide clients with shared administrative services, manufacturing and office space, training workshops, use of our state-of-the-art Technology Conference Center and access to free onsite business counseling from the Tennessee Small Business Development Center.

A Bit of History

The BDC building was built for manufacturing in the late 1920s when Chattanooga’s economic base was largely industrial. The site housed innovative industrial giant 3M in the 1950s until it was transitioned to Hamilton County in the mid 1980s. Local economic development leaders transformed the facility into the community’s first business incubator, planting the seeds of what would become Chattanooga’s dynamic entrepreneurial ecosystem. Find a timeline further detailing the BDC’s history here.

The INCubator program is accredited by the International Business Innovation Association. Our certificate of membership can be viewed here.