Ascender has named the 11 startups that will receive a year-long support effort that will look to help turn budding businesses into established enterprises.
The East Liberty-based nonprofit mentorship and coworking space provider announced that over 50 startup companies applied to participate in its 2023-2024 incubator.
"Game recognizes game," Nadyli Nuñez, executive director of Ascender, said in a prepared statement. "We continue to refine our business curriculum, add new resources, and expand our mentor network, and as a result, we're blown away each year by the quality of businesses that choose to put in the work and opt to be part of our Incubator."
Each startup will receive a $5,000 nonequity-based investment and up to $20,000 worth of business assistance. Founders also get one-on-one coaching as well as tailored educational programming and mentoring, among other perks.
Startups in Ascender's latest cohort are tackling problems using high-tech solutions based on artificial intelligence and robotics but also low-tech to no-tech solutions for challenges like child care and textile production.
Ascender said 57% of founders of these startups identify as a Black or Indigenous person of color and over half are founded by those who identify as a woman, non-binary or gender-nonconforming individual.
These are the 11 startups and their founders tapped to participate in Ascender's latest incubator:
- Asher Informatics, founded by Charlotte Kalafut and John Kalafut
- Dancers Connect, founded by Jaehee Cho
- Intrinsic Media, founded by Jibril Washington
- Kool Image Dolls, founded by Dominique Scaife
- London Bridges Child Development Center, founded by London Fitzgerald
- MitoAI, founded by Bingda Li and Xinyu Wang
- Noteful, founded by Becky Billock
- Sensify, founded by Rishi Basdeo, Shane Deng and Ryan Leemans
- SewForward, founded by Sydney Hardiman
- Solt DB, founded by Maxx Chatsko
- The Reclamation Factory, founded by Georgia Crowther
