Visible Hands Welcomes 51 Founders To Its Flagship Program
The pre-seed fund, Visible Hands, has officially launched the second cohort of its “Visionaries Accelerator” program.
The initiative, which aims to support overlooked and underrepresented founders, welcomed 51 new founders to its flagship program.
The program, which will take place from September to December, will see each company work full-time towards building their business, with financial support from the Visible Hands team. Each founder will receive a starting investment of $25,000. Throughout the program, they will have the chance to earn additional assets of up to $150,000 as they progress.
“Ultimately, we are extremely proud of the diversity in experiences, backgrounds, geography, and sectors present in our final cohort,” said Tia Thomson, Vice President and Selection Process Lead at Visible Hands.
“I was lucky enough to interview hundreds of founders throughout the selection process, and I was constantly reminded that these aren’t just amazing, underrepresented founders – they are amazing founders, period.”
Launched in 2020, the Visible Hands accelerator program annually supports overlooked talent in building technology startups. This year’s cohort consists of a highly talented group of BIPOC founders working to change the landscape of their respective industries.
So, let’s meet a few of them.
Anj Fayemi, Co-Founder of Rivet
Anj Fayemi is the founder of Rivet, an AI-driven CRM platform that helps artists and creators run their businesses. The platform, which describes itself as a space “created by creators for anyone who creates,” uses first-party fan data analytics, machine learning intelligence, and community-building to help businesses set up a site in under one minute. Not only are they able to manage their fan hubs, but they can also monetize their content simultaneously.
Asha Ownes, Founder of BestFit
Asha Owens is the founder of BestFit, a product designed to modernize the social safety net and make it easy for people to find and access the help they need. In addition, BestFit helps students fully understand how school choice can impact outcomes, so they can learn how to identify colleges that can provide them with the support and environment they need to prevail.
Austin Washington, Co-founder of Monocle
Austin Washington is the co-founder and software engineer of Monocle. The collaborative e-reader platform creates a social reading experience through shared perspectives without requiring the reader to put their book down. Not only does it build a community of readers, but it also helps them connect and exchange their thoughts through book annotations.
Brandon Mitchell, Founder, and CEO of WriteSea
Brandon Mitchell is the founder and CEO of the all-in-one solution platform, WriteSea. The app allows businesses to manage their leads, build a website, collaborate with their team, and track all their critical metrics on one platform.
Chu-Chu Igbokwe, Founder and CEO of WeThriveHub
Chu-Chu Igbokwe is the founder and CEO of the solution-based platform, WeThriveHub. The company, which is currently working to solve a $1.8 trillion warehouse inventory discrepancy problem, uses robots to help count and track all daily warehouse inventory warehouses.
