Bronze Valley Investment Accelerator welcomes inaugural cohort
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Global venture firm and startup accelerator, gener8tor, in partnership with Bronze Valley, a Birmingham-based early-stage venture fund, kicked off the inaugural Bronze Valley Investment Accelerator cohort in January. The Bronze Valley Investment Accelerator is an offering of the Bronze Valley VentureLab, focused on serving founders from backgrounds that historically have been excluded from access to capital.
Bronze Valley and gener8tor began their partnership with the Bronze Valley gBETA Accelerator, a non-equity accelerator focused on underrepresented founders, and the Bronze Valley gALPHA Accelerator, a non-equity entrepreneurship program for students affiliated with Alabama-based historically black colleges and universities. Over the last two years, the Bronze Valley Accelerator has supported 20 companies across four cohorts that collectively have raised over $8 million in venture capital after completing the program. The two organizations now further their partnership by offering the Bronze Valley Investment Accelerator, an investment-for-equity accelerator focused on investing in and supporting underrepresented founders.
The Bronze Valley Investment Accelerator recruited startups nationally for the inaugural cohort, receiving more than 800 applications. The five companies selected are 8 Myles, Athyltic, Major Care, Productions.com, and Promoshare.
“The partnership between Bronze Valley and gener8tor continues to contribute tremendously to innovation and the growth of new business and economic opportunity in Birmingham and beyond,” said Neill S. Wright, president and CEO of Bronze Valley. “Expanding this critical partnership through the Bronze Valley Investment Accelerator and VentureLab will increase our impact as we continue to support entrepreneurs and help define the future of business growth in our region and across the country.”
The Bronze Valley VentureLab is supported by the Alabama Department of Commerce, Bronze Valley, Alabama Power, Regions and Spire. The VentureLab provides advisory services and intensive programming to people of color, female, and other underrepresented entrepreneurs to create pathways for their companies through ideation, investment, and scale through HBCU accelerator programs, one-on-one advising and support, and six-month accelerator programming that includes the Bronze Valley Investment Accelerator’s intensive three-month program. The Bronze Valley Investment Accelerator is held once per year with five companies accepted to ensure a high level of individualized attention.
“We’re thrilled to expand our partnership with Bronze Valley to amplify the impact the Bronze Valley VentureLab has had among companies with diverse founding teams,” said Haley Medved Kendrick, gener8tor Investment Accelerator senior managing director. “The five startups were selected from a highly competitive pool of over 800 applicants, and represent the exceptional caliber of founders we have had the opportunity to get to know through our work with Bronze Valley.”
At the end of the Bronze Valley Investment Accelerator, startup founders will pitch their companies to investors, community partners and the public at a showcase event April 27th at 5:30 p.m. at Lumi, which is located at 2201 2nd Ave S Suite 202, in Birmingham.
“It’s such an exciting opportunity to work with Bronze Valley and support this group of talented and diverse founders,” said Carly Seldon, gener8tor Investment Accelerator program manager. “Bronze Valley’s mission and partnership with gener8tor is one that will have far-reaching impact, and we’re looking forward to seeing each company share their impact with the Birmingham community.”
Startup companies and founders interested in learning more about the Bronze Valley Investment Accelerator and resources or applying to a future program are encouraged to visit gener8tor.com/bronze-valley-
Bronze Valley Investment Accelerator 2023 Cohort
8 Myles inspires all of us to embrace comfort, create memories and share the little moments together through comfort foods. With their line of clean, premium Mac ‘N’ Cheese, “Myles Mac”, 8 Myles is the marriage of quality and convenience that the modern day consumer deserves. 8 Myles has achieved distribution through 1,200 retail partner locations and is growing 250 percent year over year.
Founder and CEO: Myles Powell | myles@8myles.com | www.8myles.com
Athlytic empowers student athletes to learn and connect with brands to participate in name, image and likeness campaigns. Athlytic helps brands with identifying, connecting and transacting with the right student athletes to reach their target goals with a focus on social analytics and vetted campaign templates. Athlytic supports over 1,000 student athletes and has helped facilitate partnerships with brands such as Native Pet, Breadless and Spikeball.
Founder and CEO: Ashton Keys | ashtonkeys@athlytic.io | www.athlytic.io
Major Care™ blends the power of continuous remote doula and lactation care with guided learning via their mobile app to effect better, safer and more supported and equitable postpartum outcomes for parents. Originally direct to consumer, Major Care is now working with managed care organizations to integrate scalable remote doula care within healthcare.
Founder and CEO: Mandy Major | mandy@thatismajor.com | www.thatismajor.com
Productions.com connects studios, music labels and corporate brands to vetted local crew, saving them time and money in the process. Productions.com advocates for production professionals of all backgrounds and is proud to help level the playing field for women, professionals of color, veterans, and members of the disabled and LGBTQIA+ communities, each of whom are underrepresented in production industries. Productions.com has increased the number of users on the platform by 10x since 2020 and is now serving 26 clients with over $40,000 MRR.
Founder and CEO: Carolyn Pitt | carolyn@productions.com | www.productions.com
PromoShare empowers unique fan-driven marketing promotions tailor-made for sports franchises, venues, and event producers who want to tap the influential power of hyper-local fans. PromoShare’s platform enables clients to incentivize fans to create content and drive sales through custom storefronts and social channels. In Q4 of 2022, PromoShare increased revenue by 110 percent and added two times more clients over the previous quarter.
Founder and CEO: Ernesto Pedroza | ernie@promoshare.co | www.promoshare.co
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About gener8tor
gener8tor is a venture firm and national accelerator network that supports startups, founders, workers, employers, artists and musicians across race, place and gender. gener8tor partners with companies, governments, universities and nonprofits to operate programs in more than 35 communities across 20 states and two countries. Fast Company named gener8tor one of the Best Workplaces for Innovators in 2021 and 2022.
About Bronze Valley VentureLab
Bronze Valley’s VentureLab provides advisory services and intensive programming to people of color, female, and other underrepresented entrepreneurs to create pathways for their companies through ideation, investment, and scale through HBCU accelerator programs, one-on-one advisory and support and six-months of intensive accelerator programming.
About Bronze Valley
Bronze Valley is a nonprofit, early-stage, CDFI venture fund that supports high growth, innovation and technology-enabled companies created by diverse, underrepresented and underestimated founders. The mission of Bronze Valley is to provide an education-to opportunity-to-outcome pipeline for communities that are underrepresented in technology careers and in fields where innovators are shaping the future.
