A Boston-based venture capital firm with a national reach supporting underrepresented founders has announced its second cohort.
Fifty-one founders will participate in Visible Hands’ flagship accelerator. By our count, two Boston entrepreneurs were selected for the program, which aims to help traditionally overlooked talent build technology startups.
The Namesake Collaborative is a Boston startup that is streamlining the legal name and gender marker change process for trans, nonbinary and gender expansive individuals. Earlier this year, BostInno reported that the organization had partnered with the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition to launch a pilot program of its platform.
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The idea for Namesake came to founder and CEO Luke Lennon while they were running the fintech and health tech programs at MassChallenge. Lennon was in the midst of changing their own name and gender markers when they realized there had to be a way to update these “paper-heavy, legacy-system processes.”
Oatfin Inc. is also a Boston-based startup that was accepted into Visible Hands’ accelerator. The startup says it helps companies deliver cloud applications faster by helping transition from manual processes to self-service automation. Co-founder and CEO Jay Paulynice has a master’s in information systems from Northeastern University and has worked at companies like Akamai Technologies, Cinch Financial and Reggora.
The other 43 companies in the program, some of which are sending multiple leaders through the accelerator, are connecting and reuniting Black families through an ancestry platform, building an AI-powered design platform for custom-fit ethnic clothing and creating a matchmaking service for friendships.
The founders will gather in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in mid-September for a weeklong orientation.
After that, founders will complete a 14-week accelerator that includes personalized engagement plans, programming with experts and funding. Visible Hands will give each company an initial investment of $25,000 and they can earn up to $150,000 from the pre-seed fund as they progress.
“Make no mistake, our accelerator will focus on the tactical components of company building from market validation to a go-to-market strategy to fundraising and many other topics,” Visible Hands’ vice president and product lead Nashaira Ofori said in a statement.
“We’ll just do it in a way that helps founders feel seen, supported, and surrounded, which for us means building out an accelerator that is planned with the unique experiences overlooked founders have in navigating the entrepreneurial ecosystem. This includes creating space for founders to focus on their wellness and avoid burnout.”
Visible Hands said it received more than 1,400 applications for this cohort. More than 70% of the accepted founders identify as Black, African American, and/or Latinx. About 53% of the founders identified as cisgender women, 43% as cisgender men, 2% as nonbinary, and 2% as transgender men.
Earlier this year, Visible Hands announced its first fund of $10.5 million. Its investors included Atento Capital of the George Kaiser Family Foundation, Bank of America, Equity Alliance, and Brown Advisory.
In the announcement for its new accelerator cohort, Visible Hands said these funds have already been deployed to more than 50 entrepreneurs from its previous cohort, including Noula Health, Parfait and Hearth Display.
