When the first round of the Derby Diversity Week’s Ideathon took place in early May, Courtney Pettway had only heard about the event about a week ahead of time on a social media post from someone who did not even live in Louisville.
“I hate doing things at the last minute, but I was like, 'Oh, let me shoot my shot,'” she said.
When it comes to winning grants to fund their startup company KidVestors, Pettway and her husband, Darius, seemingly cannot miss, as of late.
On Tuesday, the Pettways took home the $25,000 grand prize for the inaugural event’s Ideathon Ultimate Showdown, giving them a total of more than $70,000 in non-dilutive funding since they founded the company in April 2021.
Those winnings included being one of 10 recipients of $25,000 from FUBU founder and “Shark Tank” celebrity investor Daymond John during Black Entrepreneurs Day in 2021. KidVestors has also been awarded non-dilutive funding from EnrichHer and the DivInc Women in Tech Accelerator.
To win Ideathon, the Pettways had to present to a panel of three judges about their company, which uses culturally relevant topics to teach financial literacy geared toward K-12 students through its interactive, animated and gamified platform.
“We are essentially creating a 'Sims'-like environment for financial literacy,” Courtney Pettway told the audience gathered at the Kentucky International Convention Center in Louisville.
Currently, KidVestors has its curriculum being used in four schools: A pilot program at the West End School in Louisville and three charter schools in California.
Courtney Pettway said that the ultimate goal was to be in public and charter schools across the country — particularly Title I schools that are attended by a large percentage of students from low-income families. In their presentation, the Pettways said 27 states required some form of financial literacy course for high school students to graduate.
“People always ask us why, and my response is always 'Why not?' ... Why not teach our children the very same thing we wished we could have known when we were kids?” Darius Pettway said during the pitch.
Last week, the Pettways presented at Black Founders Exchange in Durham, North Carolina, hosted in part by Google for Startups. During that trip, they began negotiations to partner with M&F Bank — the largest Black-owned bank in the U.S. — and distribute their software throughout the state of North Carolina.
Next week, they will travel to Orlando, Florida, as one of three chosen to present out of 200-plus applicants for a $5,000 grant at BITCON, a large technology conference geared toward the Black community.
The other two Ideathon finalists were:
- C.J. Carter of Hola Cannabi, who talked about his end-to-end enterprise resource planning (ERP) software built specifically for the production and supply chain needs of the cannabis industry.
- Ace McGill, who presented his company, Value Buddy, and its business valuation software geared to help entrepreneurs and small businesses have a better understanding of their worth in a seamless process.
To help prepare for the finals, Ideathon partners Amplify Louisville and the Microsoft Future of Work Initiative provided the three finalists — who each took home a little more than $8,000 in May — with free courses and business connections over the summer. In addition, Technology Concepts Group International provided the user experience designers to help the five semifinalists build out the digital interface of their projects.
Tuesday’s event both ended the first edition of Derby Diversity Week, while also kicking of the 2023 chapter of the event, which was founded by Tawana Bain, who has also started a variety of other related ventures including Today's Woman magazine and the Global Economic Diversity Development Initiative (GEDDI), a non-profit organization that serves as an accelerator for several Black-owned small businesses.
Before the presentation, Bain announced in her opening remarks that Fifth Third Bank had been named co-chair of the 2023 event.
The prize winnings were contributed jointly by Churchill Downs and Curaleaf, a Black-owned national recreation and medical dispensary of cannabis.
