The Conscious Venture Lab, an accelerator in partnership with the Conscious Venture Fund II, announced that applications are open for Conscious Venture Lab 7: Urban Resilience and Smart Cities. Focused on ideas that align with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the team is searching for entrepreneurs who are building businesses that will solve issues of concern for cities and urban communities. Issues such as food security, inequality, educational outcomes, environmental issues and more – with a strong focus on identifying minority entrepreneurs and companies solving problems for underserved communities.
Up to 40 companies will be selected to participate in the program, which will run for 16-weeks between June and September 2021, culminating in a virtual investor showcase week. At the end of the program, all companies will be evaluated by the Conscious Venture fund to receive an investment of up to $120K. The deadline to apply is April 5th, 2021.
The program, recently named one of the 10 top social impact accelerator programs in the world, features a robust curriculum providing entrepreneurs with a foundation for building a company and vision based on societal purpose, while focusing on the skills needed to build sustainable business models.
The Conscious Venture Lab graduated its sixth, and first virtual, cohort this past February. This cohort culminated with a full week of virtual pitches and networking with the 42 participating companies.
“Due to the pandemic, the Conscious Venture Lab was compelled to find a new way to continue working towards our mission of providing opportunity to talented entrepreneurs everywhere. We took a leap of faith and implemented a new virtual program which enables us to re-imagine the accelerator experience, how we engage with companies, whom we can help and, how we invest,” said Jeff Cherry, CEO of the Conscious Venture Lab and general partner of Conscious Venture Partners.
Cherry went on to say: “Transitioning online enabled us to scale quite significantly; we were able to enlist 42 companies into the cohort, where our in-person cohorts maxed out at 10. These entrepreneurs came from 15 states and 13 countries with over 70% founded by minority or female entrepreneurs. A significant number of those founders were from right here in Baltimore and we are working to make sure black, brown and female founders from the city are well represented in cohort 7. We learned a tremendous amount through the process and the success of our first virtual cohort has left our team energized and excited to find and support a new group of entrepreneurs this summer.
Several program graduates from previous cohorts have made significant strides in their industries and hit major company milestones in 2020. This year, Shea Radiance announced that they will be launching in 200 Giant Food stores across the Mid-Atlantic, Hungry Harvest saw a very healthy increase in sales during the pandemic due to the increase in online grocery shopping, and Revased Flowers pivoted their business model from repurposing event flowers to supplying and shipping directly from farms during the pandemic. They are now shipping nationwide and will launch a new Series Seed round in 2021. Most notably, R3 Score Technologies completed a reverse merger and the company is now our first to be listed on the public equity markets.
The Conscious Venture Lab was founded in 2013 with sponsorship from The Howard County Economic Development Authority.
Applications are being accepted here: now through April 5th, 2021.
