Startup Runway Finalists Thrive

As our Fall 2017 season kicks off, we’re so proud of the scaling successes of the Spring Showcase Finalists.

During the Spring, our volunteer team reviewed 100 applications from minority- and women-led startups, which historically have a challenging time raising capital and breaking into the startup scene. Over 90% of venture capital is invested in white male founding teams. Our program mission is to introduce top quality minority-led startups to quality seed state professional investors.

Thanks to local sponsors like The Gathering Spot, Spencer Stuart, the Atlanta Hawks, the Metro Atlanta Chamber, OnPay, and Write2Market, these Startup Runway finalists get coaching, mentoring and introductions to seed stage investors — and one winner receives a $10,000 strings free prize check.

50% of our Finalists created meaningful traction and acceleration within 30 days of the program.

• Three of our Spring 2017 finalists successfully raised capital or received a term sheet.
• One, Patientory founded by African-American Chrissa McFarlane, raised $7.2 million with her ICO.
• Another, Qoins, co-founded by El Salvadoran-American Christian Zimmerman and African-American Nate Washington, was just accepted into the Queen City Fintech Accelerator.
• Others are continuing to grow and scale. Quinetha Frasier, for example, CEO at MyPledger, will be on Dana Barrett’s show in early September and at the International Crowdfunding Conference in San Francisco on Sept. 7th.