Six companies founded by women of color were each offered a $25,000 investment during the Wild Accelerator Demo Day event Thursday.
The event, held at Story Louisville on Main Street, was the culmination of the 14-week, pre-accelerator program and gave the founders a chance to pitch their early-stage businesses to potential investors.
But before the pitching even began, it was announced that Keyhorse Capital, the investment arm of the Kentucky Science and Technology Corp., extended $25,000 investment offers to all of the companies in the cohort, totaling $150,000. The firm, led by Managing Partner Kelby Price, is, by far, the most active investor in Kentucky-based startups.
One startup in the Wild cohort is moving its headquarters to Louisville as a result of the program and investment. Capsoul, which has roots in Cleveland, aims to build a luggage category for the next generation of travelers called "bleisure," the cross section of business and leisure.
Capsoul founder and CEO Marissa Denise Wilson told the crowd she aims to capture 2% of the market — a $7 billion opportunity.
"I spent tons of time rushing around on planes, trains, Ubers and Lyfts with multiple tiny bags, and I really just wanted to find one bag that I can take with me so replaced all those little bags I was carrying around," she said. "When I couldn't find the adaptability I was looking for, I decided to design it myself."
In addition to Capsoul, the Wild cohort included Louisville-based The Elephant in the Room, founded by Keionna Baker and Cherena Fox; The Nori Project, founded by Anora Morton; Wild Seed Coffee, founded by Maya Van Irvin; Komiuniti, founded by Lourdes Rosillo; and Black UX Labs, founded by Amber Fields.
Wild Accelerator launched in 2018 in an effort to support female founders. It was sold by Louisville design company Kale & Flax to Story in the summer of 2019.
This is the first cohort Wild has had since the coronavirus pandemic began, and the first time it has been tailored to Black and Latinx femme-identifying founders. As I previously reported, Wild received a $270,000 investment from JP Morgan Chase earlier this year.
"What we wanted to do with this program is do something a little bit different and make our founders undeniable," said Natalia Bishop, chair of Wild. "It is important build social impact companies and nobody does that better than women. No one does that better than Black and Brown women, and that's what we are here to do."
Bishop pointed out the challenges when it comes to scaling these ventures when female-founded companies raised just 1.9% of all venture capital in 2022. That figure is even lower for startups that are founded by women of color.
Through the program, Bishop said she's gotten to know each of the founders and their businesses deeply.
"I've seen the shift from having a company that can make money to having a company that can make hundreds of millions or a unicorn company ... to watch that has been an honor for me, it has been the honor of my life," she said.
In addition to Story, Keyhorse Capital and the JP Morgan Chase Foundation, this season of Wild was sponsored by Velo Ventures, University of Louisville/Humana Foundation Health Equity Innovation Hub, Queer Kentucky, Score Louisville and Kale & Flax.
