As Tampa Bay’s technology star rises, the programs that built the ecosystem are reaping the benefits.
The Tampa Bay Wave’s TechDiversity cohort, now in its fifth year, announced its latest class of companies on Monday.
The diversity-focused accelerator program tapped 15 companies for its fall class. Each of the startups is at least 51% owned, controlled and operated by minority entrepreneurs, women, veterans, those in the LGBTQ+ community and/or people with disabilities.
It first began in 2018, after receiving funding from the Nielsen Foundation to support diversity among early-stage tech startups.
“When the Nielsen Foundation began working with Tampa Bay Wave to build this program, we could only dream of the type of growth and traction that the accelerator and its founders have achieved,” Andrea Bertels, the Nielsen Foundation’s president of grantmaking, said in a statement. “We need an inclusive economy that works for all people, and we’re honored to support the TechDiversity Accelerator to supercharge the impact these amazing diverse founders can have.”
Among the new class are eight female founders, two LGTBQ+, one veteran, two Black, three Latinx and eight Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander entrepreneurs.
There are five are from Florida, with eight from states across the nation and two from Canada. According to the Tampa Bay Wave, many of the companies have graduated from other highly regarded programs, including Techstars, Y Combinator, Harvard Innovation Labs, Johnson & Johnson J Labs and Alchemist. Many of the companies have also had prior exits.
“There is tremendous opportunity to increase founder diversity and funding within high-growth technology startups, and we’re proud to work with the Nielsen Foundation to continue to build this program and strengthen our commitments to advancing diversity and inclusion within the early-stage, startup space,” Linda Olson, founder and CEO of the Tampa Bay Wave, said in a statement.
The companies, in the words of the Tampa Bay Wave, are listed below.
302 Interactive
Headquarters: Orlando
What they do: 302 Interactive is developing Easel — a design platform with a headless architecture to reduce the time and effort of creating interactive 3D content for the metaverse.
BāKIT Box
Headquarters: Chicago
What they do: BāKIT Box is a specialty baking kit service aimed at making baking easy and accessible. It offers a changing menu of culturally diverse baking kits and all the pre-measured ingredients delivered to your door and brings easy baking to the modern age, enabled by technology.
Coralai
Headquarters: Seattle
What they do: Coralai is an AI-driven skin care retail ecosystem built to enable individuals to better understand their skin, set personal skin goals, receive tailored product recommendations and routines and connect with professionals.
Enlightapp
Headquarters: Austin, Texas
What they do: Enlight helps teachers build meaningful engagement and create inclusive learning environments in the classroom.
Finni Health
Headquarters: Toronto, Ontario
What they do: Finni Health is building Shopify for ABA Therapy. Out of the 5 million Americans diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, half will go on to receive care. Its mission is to help practitioners build and scale their own at-home autism therapy clinics.
JobGraze
Headquarters: Tampa
What they do: JobGraze is an online job platform connecting licensed health care professionals and employers.
Krew Social
Headquarters: St. Petersburg
What they do: Krew Social is a friend-making app that is focusing on building community within organizations. Numerous studies have shown friendship increases profitability, retention and lease renewals.
LunaJoy Health
Headquarters: St. Petersburg
What they do: LunaJoy is a digital care clinic for women throughout their life span: puberty, pregnancy, postpartum, infertility, miscarriage and perimenopause. They provide in-network therapy, medication management and coaching.
Maya Ai
Headquarters: Tampa
What they do: Maya is a market intelligence engine for data teams. The technology continuously learns and provides the most marginal opportunities from market shifts.
No Limbits
Headquarters: Iowa City, Iowa
What they do: No Limbits is a ready-to-wear adaptive apparel brand with the mission of increasing comfort, confidence and independence in those who struggle with clothing due to a disability.
O’Peers
Headquarters: San Francisco
What they do: O’Peers offers burnout and stress prevention programs for remote teams, including therapist-directed virtual support groups in which employees discuss their mental health and professional growth.
REES Community
Headquarters: Winnipeg, Ontario
What they do: REES is a simple, secure online platform for reporting sexual harassment, misconduct and assault that can be adapted for use across any industry.
STAKANA
Headquarters: Seattle
What they do: Stakana brings AI-powered customer insights to community banks and credit unions. They predict customer behavior to increase revenue, market share and customer loyalty.
TechComb
Headquarters: Tampa
What they do: TechComb streamlines the process of developing computer vision applications providing real-time detection and classification of images. Leveraging this capability, TechComb offers schools a plug-and-play software solution to identify and send alert notifications about harmful threats nearing entering schools.
Venteur
Headquarters: Berkeley, California
What they do: Venteur is an AI-powered benefits marketplace that enables businesses to offer their employees better health insurance for less money. Instead of offering a traditional group health insurance plan, businesses are able to provide their employees with tax-free money to buy health insurance.
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