Techstars, a global investment business that provides access to capital, one-on-one mentorship, and customized programming for early-stage entrepreneurs, closed a new pre-seed fund that will invest in underrepresented founders of color in the U.S.
Key investors in Rising Stars include Twitter and Amazon, alongside additional corporate and individual investors.
Led by Neal Sales-Griffin, Techstars Chicago managing director, Rising Stars will support U.S.-based Black, Hispanic and Latino, Indigenous American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, and Filipino, Hmong and Vietnamese Asian entrepreneurs through $100K pre-seed investments, access to the Techstars broader network, and early consideration for accelerator participation. It will source investments by leveraging Techstars’ extensive community presence across the U.S. as well as their accelerator application pipeline where more than 30,000 applications are received per year.
Rising Stars will enable Techstars to invest in founders at the earliest stages in their entrepreneurial journey and identify future candidates for the company’s 50+ accelerators around the world.
Founded in 2006, Techstars has invested in more than 3,000 companies with a combined market cap of more than $172B.
FinSMEs
02/05/2022