"The statistics speak for themselves: You are unequivocally missing out on tremendous opportunity by not knowing where Black founders are and not funding them."
Thoughts: I get excited about helping the company build something tangible that can provide business value in days-to-weeks as opposed to months-to-years.
St. Pete Catalyst • Leasecake, an Orlando-based Embarc Collective member company, just closed $3M in funding, led by Florida-based Las Olas Ventures. Leasecake is a cloud-based software that helps landlords, tenants, and brokers track cash flow, lease expirations and renewals, critical clauses in lease agreements, and other mission-critical aspects of commercial properties.
TBBJ • Embarc Collective member company, Knack, has announced the Complete Tampa Bay initiative, a collaboration with the Community Foundation of Tampa Bay, Urban League of Hillsborough County, and LEAP Tampa Bay College Access Network. This will support adults returning to educational or vocational programs.
TBBJ • St. Petersburg-based Seedfunders has made a first $50K investment from its Opportunity Fund into Tampa-based WeRise. Seedfunders' Opportunity Fund arm launched last year to bring more funding to Black-owned companies.
Elevator Pitch: Florida Funders is a hybrid of a venture capital fund and an angel investor network that discovers, funds, and builds early-stage technology companies in Florida and beyond.
Position: Marketing Manager
Position Highlights: This person will support all elements of both investor and founder marketing for Florida Funders, the most active investor in the Southeast.
In this 2020 episode of How I Built This, Awotona, an Atlanta-based founder, talks about how he built Calendly, the scheduling tool that keeps our team at Embarc Collective efficient, with minimal capital. Calendly is now valued at $3B.
Center for Black Innovation Business Pre-Accelerator Program
Applications are now open for cohort 1 of the 8-week startup pre-accelerator program. Gain the essentials skills and resources you need to scale your startup and secure funding.
SoGal Foundation has teamed up with Winky Lux, bluemercury, and twelveNYC to award $10K and $5K cash grants to Black women or nonbinary entrepreneurs. Awardees will also receive tactical help navigating the fundraising environment lifetime “ask-me-anything” access to the SoGal Foundation and Ventures teams.
Growing our region's startup community takes all of us. Here are quick ways you can help Embarc Collective member startups:
💲Grifin allows you to buy stock where you shop. Download Grifin for iOS.
🚀Ready to land your first data science job? Prepare with Dataquest.
💰Are you are college student or professional with student loan debt? Defynance would like to speak with you as they conduct customer discovery interviews.
Embarc Collective, 802 E. Whiting Street, Tampa, Florida 33602, United States
![Embarc_Logo_RGB_Tampa Bay[4].png](https://hs-4956740.f.hubspotemail.net/hub/4956740/hubfs/Embarc_Logo_RGB_Tampa%20Bay%5B4%5D.png?upscale=true&width=200&upscale=true&name=Embarc_Logo_RGB_Tampa%20Bay%5B4%5D.png){kind=logo}
.png?upscale=true&width=850&upscale=true&name=TWC%20Newlsetter%20Titles%20(2).png)
.png?upscale=true&width=1090&upscale=true&name=RISE%20(8).png)
