Meet investors at the top showcase of competitively selected startups led by under-represented founders. Join the virtual pitch event and hear from some of Georgia's most promising firms as they compete for 30k in non-dilutive capital thanks to our generous grant underwriters for this event which include the Partnership for Inclusive Innovation (PIN), American Family Insurance and COX.
Thursday, February 23
3:00 PM EST
Register: https://startuprunway.org/events/startup-runway-edition-18/ [startuprunway.org]
About Startup Runway
Startup Runway was born right after that event, in a parking lot in Atlanta's midtown. I made a phone call to my friend Ryan Wilson, who had his hands full with his own startup, The Gathering Spot. He said, if we built it, founders would come. It wasn't clear we'd have success at the time. There were lots of pitch events for particular types of founders--African American, Latin American, LGBQT, women . . . To some extent, the "pitch marketplace" looked crowded. But my experience as a founder and an investor was, “female founder pitches” and “pitches for black founders” and so forth were often non-competitive. The hunger and ambition for excellence driving so many founders didn’t find outlets in those kinds of onramps. They were more inspirational events. In traditional venture events, built by and for a 95% white male venture capital club, the culture gap steep for founders who are women, and thus have access to 70% of the capital men do, or for people of color. Black families on average have 1/10th the wealth of white families. For underrepresented founders, traditional investor pitch competitions are like asking startups to achieve lift-off from an untended gravel road when everyone else has a jetway. We decided to pave that runway founders needed--super competitive, real investors, a place for innovation to soar. We want to see all founders flying.