A new business accelerator has launched to pack a one-two punch of addressing the growing need for tech talent and creating institutional wealth in underrepresented communities.
The Soaring City Tampa Business Accelerator launched last month, hoping to boost 10 startups with underrepresented founders. The startups will present during the accelerator's first-ever Demo Day on June 12.
The accelerator is funded by a grant from Florida Business Development Corp. and is intended to address the issue of generational poverty.
"There are two theories out there: One tends to be housing first, the other is we need to get them jobs," said Eric Larson, COO at the Tampa Innovation Alliance. "To get affordable housing, you have to be able to afford it. It was one of the driving factors to creating an innovation district — you should create innovative jobs."
The Soaring City Tampa Business Accelerator is based in the Uptown District near the University of South Florida, in Rithm at Uptown, formerly called University Mall.
"With Uptown, there is a higher concentration of generational poverty and the solutions Soaring City has is supporting entrepreneurship," said Eddie Burch, Soaring City Innovation Partnership's communications coordinator. "You're strengthening them to build something they own — and they’ll have to hire people, so it's developing businesses and creating jobs."
The companies are taught to better tackle their businesses and are also all given a $3,500 non-equity grant. The accelerator is done in partnership with Florida Blue, LT3 Labs and Tampa-based innovation hub Embarc Collective. Startups in the accelerator have direct access to LT3 Lab's talent pipeline, which helps students discover careers in technology.
The accelerator is not meant to compete with the plethora of other accelerator programs in the region, including Embarc Collective, Tampa Bay Wave and Tampa Bay Innovation Center. There is also the accelerator program near Rithm, which is nestled in the University of South Florida's research center.
"It should not be a, 'Who you know kind of thing,'" Martika Jones, founder of BŪP and member of the program, said. "A lot of the resources aren’t actively available; I feel the difference with this accelerator."
The 10 startups in the program are:
BIOS: The company provides an interactive animated resource for life science education. Its founder, Adan Jackson, was featured as a Tampa Bay Inno's 25 Under 25 honoree in 2022.
Bulkitrade: A B2B marketplace that connects emerging food and beverage brands with international retailers, wholesalers and distributors. It combines shopping, shipping, payment solutions and data on a single platform.
BŪP: A B2B SaaS networking solution powered by AI to help the exchange of information and capturing of leads. You can learn more about the company here.
Care Collective: It develops a health care marketplace for in-home care services. Patients, families and care professionals utilize its Uber-type application to find skilled and non-skilled care on demand.
Divine Hustle: A media and education technology company that creates cutting-edge culturally relevant media products and digital education programs for marginalized and underserved populations.
Erudyte: It is an education tech company facilitating immersive, interactive learning sessions in a mobile augmented reality environment. Students interact with virtual “tutors” who direct the learning sessions and prompt students to interact with their surroundings in a manner that fosters long-term retention. It was previously known as MARVL — you can learn about it here.
fayVen: The company helps book local vendors for pop-up shops to generate additional revenue and increase foot traffic through co-marketing. Learn more about the company here.
Maka Social: Bridges the gap between the dating app and the real-world singles event merging the best of both.
OpenOcean: A SaaS platform built to help ESOs streamline access to and tracking of support provided to founders.
Zapay: It allows friends and family to lend each other money and handle repayments through automation.
