Black Ambition, a Miami-based nonprofit organization founded by Grammy Award-winning singer Pharrell Williams, offered cash prizes to students and entrepreneurs developing seed and early-stage companies in a national pitch competition.
The Black Ambition prizes and the Black Ambition HBCU Prize, for current or former students of historically Black colleges and universities, awarded funds July 13 to Black and Latin American entrepreneurs building consumer products and services, in the design, health care and technology industries.
Livegistics, a Detroit-based tech company, won $1 million in funding as the grand prize winner. New York-based Dosso Beauty won $250,000, the top prize award in the HBCU category.
Additional teams received cash prizes.
They were:
- Baltimore-based Alodia received $250,000
- Beereaders, with offices in Austin, Texas; Chile and Peru, $250,000
- Durham, North Carolina-based QuirkChat, $250,000
- Tuscon, Arizon-based Emagine Solutions Technology, $100,000
- San Francisco-based Shea’d received $100,000 in the HBCU category
- Atlanta-based Gaba, $75,000 in the HBCU category
- PaperAI, $50,000 in the HBCU category
“Black and Latinx founders are the epitome of ambition, even as they are continuously met with barriers to access opportunities and funding,” said Felecia Hatcher, who recently took on the role of CEO of Black Ambition. “We are so proud of our finalists and the big and bold ways they are solving problems.”
During Black Ambition's Demo Day, more than 100 investors were invited to hear the finalists' pitches.
Since its launch in December, Black Ambition had received more than 1,700 applications, of which 34 founders across the nation were selected to participate. These finalists had access to personal mentors and coaches before pitching.
"To the best of our ability we tried to replicate the experience that they would have had in person," Hatcher said of the virtual event.
All finalists received funding of at least $15,000 and will continue to participate in mentorship support, including meeting weekly with a coach through August.
Hatcher said founders will undergo financial training to fully understand how to use and leverage awards.
Launched in December, Black Ambition was created to fund projects led by Black and Hispanic entrepreneurs.
Moving forward, Hatcher said she looks forward to supporting the efforts of other entrepreneurs. She plans to meet the president of Florida Memorial University to discuss programming to support innovative students at the historically Black college and university.
Additionally, Hatcher said Black Ambition plans to host a set of regional demo days and pitch competitions leading to another national event in the future.
“As an organization, we want to take out any barrier that has interrupted founders from being able to achieve success,” she said. “We want to create the most conducive environment possible for them to succeed.”
For more stories like this one, sign up for Miami Inno newsletters from the South Florida Business Journal and the American Inno network.
