Back row (L-R): Cyrus Kazi, CEO, iQuantile, Jeff Cherry, Founder & CEO, Conscious Venture Lab, Brian Le Gette, Entrepreneur-In-Residence, Conscious Venture Lab, Kendrick Pullen, CEO, LifeTagger, Seth Calloway, Business Development Director, Life Tagger, Craig Schmieder, Technical Lead, School Duels, Derek Battle, Business Development Specialist, School Duels, Arielle Vogelstein, CEO, ReVased, Jake Shipley, CEO, School Duels, Aviva Vogelstein, COO, ReVased, Alex Peters, Sports Journalist, School Duels
Front Row (L-R): Content McLaughlin, Director of Operations, Conscious Venture Lab, Marianna Pappas, Program Director, SHIFT Ventures/Conscious Venture Lab, Aimee Martin, CEO, Mile Marker EDU, Wen-Kuni Ceant, Co-Founder, Politicking, John Steuart, Chairman, School Duels, Marlon Brown, COO, Life Tagger, Jes Clemente, Director of Business Development, Life Tagger
SHIFT Ventures and the Conscious Venture Lab (CVL) have launched their fifth accelerator cohort, “A Challenge for More Resilient Cities,” with nine purpose-driven companies, three new investors and a new mentor.
New investors this year include The Seth Goldman and Julie Farkas Fund at Impact Assets and SIG president Richard Silberstein. Tina Naser, principal at Oliver Wyman, will join as a new mentor and investor.
Nine companies will participate in the 16-week program, which runs September 4 th through December 20th and concludes with a Demo Day in January 2020. Each company will attend intensive, weekly training sessions with one-on-one guidance from mentors including the CVL CEO and founder, Jeff Cherry and entrepreneur-in-residence, Brian Le Gette, the founder of Ammortal.
This year, companies will have access to more CVL partners that offer training, discounted services and benefits to help scale their businesses. The new partners are Econic, and Baltimore-based SmartLogic and SC&H Group. Returning partners include The Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia,Amazon Web Services,ClearSpace, and Allison Armitage from Mind into Matter.
Cherry said he is thrilled to see the program grow each year and “foster purpose-driven businesses that innovate and tackle big community issues. We’re looking forward to working with these teams to drive Baltimore’s economic growth through socially conscious, community-focused entrepreneurism.”
SHIFT Ventures and the CVL focused on recruiting companies with founders who reflect the diversity of the mid-Atlantic region. The companies selected this year include five female- and four minority-owned businesses.
The 2019 SHIFT Ventures and the CVL companies are:
HostHome Community created a sharing economy app that addresses a worldwide philanthropic and government priority by helping LGBTQ citizens who are facing homelessness. HostHome Community’s app helps members of this community find shared housing. This Baltimore-based company led by CEO and founder, Ava Pipitone, has received development support by Smart Logic and came to the CVL highly recommended by Christy Wyskiel, head of Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures.
LifeTagger co-founders Kendrick Pullen and Marlon Brown, created a content delivery platform that can send text messages or information based on one’s proximity to a certain business or any signal a phone can detect. “This is a great marketing tool we see some larger companies trying to figure out,” said Cherry, citing the example of Burger King using its online ordering app to offer potential customers a one cent Whopper when the app detected a phone within 600 feet of a McDonalds. Cherry said he believes LifeTagger“could be a giant company if they can get to market quickly and create a first-mover moat.”
Mile Marker Created by doctors and a female entrepreneur CEO from Johns Hopkins, Aimee Martin, Mile Marker helps university hospitals improve surgical resident education by providing immediate feedback to residents from attending surgeons. Based in Baltimore, the company is already generating revenue in teaching hospitals worldwide.
Politicking developed a mobile app dedicated to promoting voter participation among millennials. With a strong team of minority female co-founders, Wen-Kuni Ceant and Jordan Wilson, the company has a functioning product and a clear product roadmap.
iQuantile set out to providereliable, cost-effective and scalable organizational management system software for nonprofits. The New York-based team behind its creation includes Steve Forte from the Vatican accelerator and is led by CEO and founder, Cyrus Kazi.
ReVased, founded by sisters and Baltimore natives Aviva and Arielle Vogelstein,ReVasedextends the life of single-use event flowers byworking with event managers to donate flowers to charitable organizations. ReVased is an Emerging Technology Center alumnae and based in Baltimore.
SafetyPin Technologies has designed what’s known as a “holy grail” application - a product that addresses an unsolved industry challenge. Created byexperienced entrepreneur Jenny Thompson, the product provides assurance to all parties in the sharing/gig economy that providers have been vetted, are who they claim to be and can be trusted.This company is based in Baltimore and New York.
School Duels developed a way to deliver news and updates of high-school sports to athletes, parents, and fans by helping coaches and schools report on schedules, scores and conference outlooks.The team is led by CEO Jake Shipley, and includes Johns Hopkins entrepreneurship professor Jim Liew, entrepreneur Neil Klineberg and Jeff Burton, co-founder of EA Sports. Cherry said Baltimore-based School Duels caught the CVL’s attention because it had already raised $500,000 and “demonstrated a clear path to scaling locally. We feel we could help them get to a tipping point.”
We Are Marcus created an online character-development program for minority students who lack access to mentors. The DC-based company, founded by Christopher King, was designed using student input to appeal to middle and high school students. The company can scale their product to fulfill the market for schools and youth programs.
Upon program completion, these companies will bring the number of CVL alumni to 37. Earlier cohorts have included the rescued-produce distribution company, Hungry Harvest, which later obtained $100,000 in financing on ABC’s “Shark Tank,” and Shea Radiance, a cosmetics company that has grown to include more than 100 retail outlets throughout the mid-Atlantic.
“We believe these entrepreneurs possess the right combination of insight, drive, technology, and acumen to fulfill their missions,” said Joe Mechlinski, founder of SHIFT Ventures. We’re honored to help them enhance their business models, find the right investors, and spread their solutions to Baltimore and beyond.”
About SHIFT Ventures and the Conscious Venture Lab:
The Conscious Venture Lab - launched in 2013 with the support of the Howard County Economic Development Authority - is on a mission is to uncover entrepreneurial talent wherever it may be found, build mission-driven companies and make cities more just, joyous, equitable, sustainable and prosperous for all. In 2017, Conscious Venture Lab’s parent company, The Porter Group, joined forces with Baltimore-based SHIFT to form SHIFT Ventures in order to help entrepreneurs achieve increased levels of growth and sustainability. Together, the companies offer innovators and entrepreneurs new corporate partners, investors and world-class consulting expertise.
