The newest cohort has been selected for this fall's Bronze Valley Accelerator Program.
The accelerator has selected five companies from across the country representing a wide range of industries. This is the fourth class of the seven-week Bronze Valley Accelerator, and the program will focus on supporting female entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs of color using the gBETA model from accelerator organizer gener8tor.
gBETA is a free, seven-week accelerator that works with five startups for no fees and no equity buy-in. Each cohort is kept small to ensure meaningful engagement with the gener8tor team, network and other resources. Participants receive intensive and individualized coaching and access to gener8tor’s national network of mentors, customers, corporate partners and investors.
“The five teams selected for this cohort were chosen from the most competitive applicant pool we have seen to date,” said Haley Medved Kendrick, director of the Bronze Valley Accelerator. “We expect these teams to continue to set a high bar for talent and innovation in Alabama and highlight the rich opportunities to invest in communities historically excluded from access to these ecosystems.”
More than 150 startups from Alabama and beyond applied to take part in the program. The program started on Sept. 30 virtually.
“Bronze Valley is committed to supporting and nurturing innovators who are creating the future,” said Neil S. Wright, Bronze Valley's president and CEO. “The companies in the fall cohort of our accelerator epitomize that commitment, and we are gratified by the tremendous response the accelerator continues to receive.”
The program will culminate Nov. 22 at the Bronze Valley Accelerator Pitch Night, which will highlight each of the five companies. The Bronze Valley Accelerator is supported by Bronze Valley, Alabama Power and the Alabama Department of Commerce.
The companies are as follows:
• Cyber Pop-up (Chicago) — Founder and CEO Christine Izuakor — The company helps businesses get secure through an on-demand cybersecurity platform powered by vetted, highly skilled freelancers. Cyber Pop-up’s subscription offering is flexible, trustworthy and affordable for businesses of all sizes. Cyber Pop-up has completed 100-plus cybersecurity projects including a few with Fortune 1000 companies and their early impact and progress has garnered support from Google, SAP, Verizon/Techrise among others.
• DataLakeHouse.io (Fort Mill, South Carolina) — Founder and CEO Christian Screen — The company offers an analytics platform including data pipelines orchestration, pre-built data warehouses and pre-built opinionated KPI reporting. DataLakeHouse.io’s DataSync solution aims to save business leaders time and money by building sustainable pipelines and analytics solutions to replace one-off poorly maintained solutions. Since launching in summer 2020, DataLakeHouse.io has generated over $250,000 in revenue, reflecting over 300 million records processed, across more 10 data connectors currently available on the platform.
• DontHaggle (Northport) — Founder and CEO Gavin Baum-Blake — DontHaggle allows buyers and sellers to exchange items for the fairest price possible without haggling. DontHaggle is a peer-to-peer online marketplace that doesn’t use list prices. Instead, DontHaggle processes the parties’ reservation points and calculates an equitable price within the reservation range. DontHaggle launched its alpha in spring 2021 with 50 pilot users and will release the public beta in the fourth quarter of 2021.
• GLOW (Birmingham) — Founder and CEO Yazmin Cavale — A longtime Birmingham company, GLOW connects vetted beauty professionals with users to book hairstyling, makeup application and spray tan services in the comfort of their home, hotel or office through an on-demand app. GLOW empowers users not only to schedule beauty services on their own time, but on their own terms, by allowing users to choose the beauty professional they want to work with, the look they want to achieve and the place they’d like to receive their services. GLOW has 65 beauty providers in six markets and has serviced clients in over 23 cities nationwide. GLOW has generated over $360,000 in revenue from wedding and individual bookings in 2021.
• Pruuvn (Atlanta) — Founder and CEO Bryan Hobbs — Pruuvn empowers the gig economy by developing credentialing and data management tools leveraging blockchain technology. Pruuvn’s platform simplifies the employee’s verification, screening and onboarding from multiple separate steps into one simple click. Pruuvn has secured six enterprise pilots totaling over 1,000 users on the platform.
