Coming off a win during Lighthouse Labs’ recent virtual demo day, Philadelphia-based Tribaja is opening an office in Richmond, Virginia.
Founder and CEO Shannon Morales said she launched Tribaja in 2020 as way to help propel underrepresented communities forward in the tech space. The platform provides career advancement resources and job opportunities at equitable workplaces.
“Diversity is not just good for social responsibility, but it’s also a smart business decision,” she said. “By expanding to Richmond, Tribaja plans to increase brand recognition and build equitable awareness around local companies’ work culture.”
The startup’s name comes from a combination of the word tribe, along with trabaja, the Spanish word for work. Morales said Tribaja is a community that represents the future of work in culture and skillset.
The decision to expand to Richmond was based on her positive experience in Lighthouse Labs' cohort, Morales said. The startup has also joined incubator Startup Virginia.
“We are expanding into Richmond after all of the amazing support from the local community, as well as the tech and startup ecosystem,” she said. “It’s that community-oriented feeling that makes me feel we are going to be successful [there].”
Lighthouse Labs Executive Director Erin Powell said with Morales at the helm, Tribaja is a welcome addition to the tech and startup community.
"Having worked with Shannon Morales over the last three months, I can say that she's tenacious, resilient and is truly building Tribaja to be a purpose-driven organization,” Powell said. “She has built this company based on personal experience and has a unique sourcing model that will be hard for others to replicate.”
Morales said she met many founders during the accelerator and had conversations with companies who were interested in Tribaja’s mission.
“There’s value in what we’re building in the community,” she said. “The more we give our job-seekers, the more valuable they become; so if they’re up-skilled and trained, if they graduate and obtain another certification, now they’re even more valuable to the marketplace.”
She said such a support system for diverse communities is sometimes missing in the tech space, making it Tribaja’s goal to connect tech talent to resources and mentorships to help them land and secure jobs faster. The hope, Morales said, is that these folks can one day give back to the Tribaja network, whether that’s through mentorship or some other way.
The startup uses a partnership model to achieve increased diversity, Morales said.
“We acquire our job-seekers through our partnerships with nonprofits and training providers,” she said. “We also do our own sourcing and recruiting. Imagine having a continuous resource that builds diverse tech pipelines — that’s what Tribaja does for their employers.”
