Fueled Collective Selects Cohort of 10 for Diverse Founders Fellowship

Local coworking company Fueled Collective has selected 10 entrepreneurs to participate in the next cohort of its Diverse Founders Fellowship, a program it has run in partnership with Google for Startups since 2013.

Fueled has been experimenting with the format of its fellowship in 2019. Instead of supporting entrepreneurs through individual year-long fellowships as it originally did, the program now functions as a six-month accelerator cohort. Its first cohort of five wrapped up this month.

Each of the 10 founders in the new class will receive a free full-time membership to Fueled Collective and will have access to mentors in areas such as finance, marketing, sales and technology.

Here are the participating companies and entrepreneurs:

Billiyo was a finalist in the High Tech division of the Minnesota Cup in 2018. Maazah Chutney is a mainstay at the Mill City Farmer's Market and is part of Lunar Startups' second cohort. Mobineo is bringing transparency to land rights in Africa.

News of the expanded Diverse Founders Fellowship comes about six months after Google for Startups announced plans to double its financial commitment to the program.

“We’ve been incredibly impressed with what the Fueled Collective team has done with the program, and we wanted to double down on these efforts and make the program even more accessible to diverse founders,” Genna McKeel, global head of partnerships for Google for Startups, told Minne Inno at the time.

Google for Startups provides tools and best practices for entrepreneurs looking to start a business. It also connects founders to communities that can offer early-stage support in the form of mentorship, events, accelerator programs and workspace. Fueled is one of its longest-standing partners in the Google for Startups global network, which today includes more than 50 organizations.

The new cohort will wrap up with a demo day in May.