Meet Austin Inno's 2021 Fire Awards winners in the social impact category below. See all 50 Fire Awards winners in each category by clicking here.
Findhelp, formerly known as Aunt Bertha
When you need help, one of the hardest things is to find it. Who to call? Where to look? How to start getting services? This is where Findhelp steps in. The Austin-based company, previously known as Aunt Bertha, runs a referral network that lets people type in their ZIP codes and get connected with the type of help they may need. Founded in 2010 by CEO Erine Gray, the company has gained significant momentum, including serving more than 6 million users, and it has experienced additional growth driven by the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced many people to seek assistance. Findhelp announced in June a $27 million funding round led by New York City-based private equity firm Warburg Pincus.
The EBW Network, designed to help women-led businesses, was the highest-ranking Austin-area company on this year’s Inc. 5000, coming in at No. 28 nationwide. Empowering a Billion Women is a business education network that operates an accelerator for women founders, as well as a distribution business focused on getting personal protective equipment to frontline workers during the pandemic. The company, founded in 2013, is led by founder and CEO Ingrid Vanderveldt. She was previously the first entrepreneur-in-residence at Dell Technologies, as well as founder of the $125 million Dell Innovators Credit Fund. Empowering a Billion Women in 2015 launched a $100 million credit fund and a software platform for women that includes business and finance tools with the goal of helping women founders expand their businesses. It reported 10,676% growth between 2017 and 2020. That came before the company in June launched its supply chain venture development portfolio to add to its materials, health and logistics verticals.
This Austin-based financial-technology company, a portfolio startup of accelerator Sputnik ATX, is an investment platform that uses artificial intelligence to create a diversified portfolio of startups for investors. Hundreds of startups have used the platform so far. Fundry automates the fundraising process by connecting founders and investors with its proprietary algorithm. It also automates the seed-investing process from the investor side by condensing the discovery and deal-closing process, while also enabling long-term relationships between founders and investors. Co-founder and CEO Lauren Washington began the startup in 2018 with Boris Moyston and Chief Technology Officer Jean-Philippe Desmontils.
Icon is a unique company — one at the cutting edge of homebuilding technology but with eyes on other frontiers, too. The company received a U.S. Air Force contract in 2020 to develop technology for building 3D-printed structures on the moon. Since its inception in 2017, the company has been busy. It has also built 3D-printed homes for impoverished families in Mexico with nonprofit partner New Story, and Icon’s first for-sale 3D-printed homes hit the market in East Austin in March. Now it is getting into the volume homebuilding game. The Austin-based startup announced recently that it has joined forces with Lennar Corp. to develop a 3D-printed, 100-home community in a yet-to-be-announced location somewhere in the area. According to the announcement, it will be the largest 3D-printed community in the world to date. It’s set to break ground in early 2022.
Fewer than 100 Black women had raised more than $1 million of venture capital as of 2020, according to a study from Digital Undivided. One of them is Janice Omadeke, who recently raised $1.5 million for her mentor matching company, The Mentor Method. Omadeke founded The Mentor Method in 2017 with the goal of closing the opportunity equity gap. People are noticing the effort: Omadeke was named a 2020 Austin Under 40 nominee and has been named DivInc’s Champion of the Year before. The Mentor Method was also one of four startups selected by Google in September as part of its Black Founders Fund. The program offers $100,000 in non-dilutive funding to 50 startups nationwide. Omadeke was recently named a 2021 Best CEO winner in the small private company category — an annual program put on by the Austin Business Journal.
