A Milwaukee startup that developed a digital portal designed to connect underrepresented founders with investors says its system could be of great use to startup communities impacted by social distancing protocols.
Uncrowd.io, founded and led by Forest Richter, was developed to create a more level playing field due to a disproportionately smaller amount of venture funding going into minority-owned startups and startups located in small-sized geographies around in the U.S.
In the short term, Uncrowd.io can help create more connections to investors for entrepreneurs, Richter said.
“Zoom meetings are happening and Zoom events are taking place, but the networking part of that has been really difficult to replicate,” he said. “You’re not sitting next to someone in the audience. You’re not getting a chance to talk before or after and meet people.”
The platform populates founders on one side, and investors on the other, creating an introduction for parties that otherwise may not have connected. And it generates exposure for minority founders to the broader investment community.
The Uncrowd.io database features some details on startups and their founders, but investors do their own due diligence, Richter said.
The platform builds a database of founders, who upload a profile that investors can search. Investors are anonymous until they choose to engage with a founder and startup founders do not have to be at the revenue-generating stage to upload their profile.
In the long-term, Richter said investors can use his platform to perform more in-depth research on startups.
“Investors themselves will have less room for error, so they’re going to have to spend more time on research,” he said. “Spending more time on research, I believe, will create opportunities for these underrepresented founders to be seen. Investors are going to have to explore outside their normal process to try to make the smartest investment possible and that’s going to create more opportunities.”
To earn a profit, Uncrowd.io would eventually charge investors a fee to access the database.
Richter, who also owns a consultancy business called Fresh Coast Labs, recently took Uncrowd.io through FOR-M, the free incubator that's an initiative of the Milwaukee Tech Hub Coalition.
