Thursday, three Black-led startups from across the U.S. won $2 million in investment capital during the Rise of the Rest Seed Fund Virtual Tour focused on backing Black founders.
The tour was hosted by Steve Case’s Revolution, Opportunity Hub, 100 Black Angels & Allies and Morgan Stanley’s Multicultural Innovation Lab.
Together they funded three companies who were selected from more than 450 Black startup founders who applied to participate in the pitch competition from across the U.S.
And the winners are:
- $1,000,000: Rheaply (Chicago, IL), led by Garry Cooper is a B2B SaaS resource management technology to scale asset reuse within organizations helping lower procurement and storage costs and reduce waste globally with a more connected, circular economy.
- $500,000: Zirtue (Dallas, TX) led by Dennis Cail is creating a financially inclusive world by digitizing and mobilizing loans between friends and family.
- $500,000: Kanarys, Inc. (Dallas, TX) led by Mandy Price is a SaaS platform that gives companies clear metrics to diagnose, prioritize, and benchmark their diversity, equity inclusion (DEI) efforts.
Steve Case also announced that Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund will commit to investing at least $100K into any round of $1M or more in the tour’s semifinalists and finalists. [Time period: by March 31, 2021] Those companies include Abode, Kanarys, Inc., Lillii RNB Inc, Rheaply, Zirtue, Qoins, Sota-OG, WeatherCheck, DrugViu, and Cultured Decadence.
Meanwhile, investor Alice Vilma of Morgan Stanley also announced on the virtual stage that all five finalists will receive a spot in the 2021 Morgan Stanley Multicultural Innovation Lab cohort.
Watch the content and interviews from Day 1 HERE and Day 2 HERE and Day 3’s pitch competition featuring the winners HERE.
Noted investors, venture capitalists and business leaders took to the virtual stage this week across all three days during the Rise of the Rest: Equity Edition virtual tour including:
- Kesha Cash of Impact America Fund
- Dr. Wayne A. I. Frederick of Howard University
- Carla Harris and Alice Vilma of Morgan Stanley
- Rodney Sampson of OHUB
- Ted Leonsis, Revolution Growth and Monumental Sports and Entertainment, owner of NBA, WNBA and NHL sports teams
- Mike Asem from M25
- Brad Feld of the Foundry
- Candice Matthews Brackeen of Lightship Capital
- Arian Simone and Keshia Knight Pulliam of the Fearless Fund
- Vern Howard of Hallo
See the full lineup of speakers HERE.
