(Fortified Co-founders Tivan Amour and Slava Menn; Image via Wen Zeng.)
Chase Bank announced Wednesday the recipients of its Mission Main Street Grants program, designed "to help 20 small businesses make it big." Here in Boston, Fortified Bicycle is trying make cycling big and, with a new $150,000 grant, is on the road to doing just that.
The Techstars Boston grad was among one of 20 small businesses nationwide to receive its share of the program's $3 million pot. Beyond the funding, Fortified also won a February trip to Google's California headquarters for an exclusive marketing workshop, a Chromebook and a $2,000 coupon to be used toward one market research study with Google Consumer Surveys.
"For us, the program is an extension of what we're already doing for small businesses," said Chase spokesman Erich Timmerman. "Giving away a grant like this, we are hoping it makes a positive impact on the community."
Nearly 25,000 small business owners submitted to this year's program. A panel of judges chose the winners, based on four criteria: the strength of their growth plans; quality of their management team; business knowledge; and positive impact in the communities they serve.
For the Boston cycling community, that impact is coming in the form of a "bike community center."
"When we applied for the grant, we said we were going to do certain things with the money and certain things for the community," said Fortified Co-founder and CEO Slava Menn, an MIT Sloan School of Management alum, acknowledging that although they could have just put the grant toward the company's profits, they opted to stay true to their intentions. "This is a huge amount of money for a company our size."
That "huge amount of money" is going to be used to get office space big enough to double as a center where the team can host monthly events "to promote and progress biking in Boston." When Fortified's work day is done, cyclists will have a space to gather to discuss what needs to happen in the city from an advocacy, policy, technology and safety standpoint.
Menn claimed he has already been in touch with Boston "Bike Czar" Nicole Freedman, and commended Mayor Marty Walsh and his administration for the work they have done over the past year. "With the new leadership in Boston, there's more support around biking," Menn said.
Fortified wants to see the number of cyclists increase, and has been creating products that bring an added level of safety and durability to the field. The team started in February 2012 with a theft-resistant bike light, which surpassed its $18,000 Kickstarter goal in 25 hours. Two new indestructible bike lights were rolled out in September 2013 and, again, reached their crowdfunding goal in less than a day, raising an overall $177,266.
The early success landed the company in the Techstars Boston Fall 2014 class. And, come the accelerator's Demo Day in November, the team was rolling out what Menn is calling the "Ultimate Urban Bicycle" — a bike "designed to live outside in a city 365 days a year" that won't rust or decay, or be stripped and stolen.
"We started the company because we realized that there weren't any brands designing products for city cyclists," Menn said, noting that the bike light was their first test to see if the world needed "rugged, city-proof products."
Turns out, they did.
Now all that's left to wait for is March, when Fortified is aiming to move into a space in the Leather District — their new bike in tow.
