For the first time since 2019, Black entrepreneurs in Portland pitched their businesses to hundreds of possible investors and customers, and competed for $100,000 in cash prizes.
The sixth annual PitchBlack showcased seven businesses that included camping services and healthy fruit smoothie companies. Organized by Stephen Green, board chair of the event’s main sponsor Built Oregon and a fierce advocate for women and minority founders, the Shark Tank-esque event sold out quicker than ever.
“Usually we sell about 90% of our tickets the last three days before the event, but (this year) we sold out two weeks before,” Green said.
Businesses gave a five-minute pitch and were allowed to answer two audience questions. At the end of all the pitches, audience members voted for the business they liked most.
All companies, regardless of placement, walked away from the night with $2,000. Adre, a BIPOC-focused real estate development company, won first place and $40,000. Hue Noir, a beauty company that serves those with darker skin tones, won second place and $20,000. Camp Yoshi, an all-inclusive camping service that connects the Black community with the outdoors, won third place and $10,000.
Anyeley Hallová, Adre's founder, was shocked to learn she had won not only the first place prize, but an additional $10,000 from a donation from Intel. She plans to use the money to hire more employees.
“When I think of Pitch Black, I think about business and the venture capital world, so I was happy to share this vision a lot because a lot of the businesses that are here will one day be retail,” Hallová said. “So I’m really trying to have my buildings create a community of these businesses to support them on the real estate and ownership side.”
The other businesses that pitched included:
- Drink Mamey, a woman-owned health juice company.
- Plant Bomb: which makes plant-based healthy sauces.
- Panga: which makes recyclable and compostable oral hygiene products.
- Dashdok: a cardholder that magnetically docks to car dashboards to make necessary documents reachable in the case of traffic stops.
