Steve Lee is the Co-Founder & CEO of Aura Health. Prior to Aura, he co-founded and led technology for Wayfarer, a social wellness platform. He is a bioengineer and holds the M.T.M. degree from the University of California, San Francisco and the University of California, Berkeley. He was awarded Forbes 30 Under 30 for his work at Aura.

Venture Bio Coming Soon

Organizational Needs: Coming Soon

Raising: Coming Soon

Amount Raising: Coming Soon

Stephen Kump is CEO of Charityvest, a donor-advised fund technology company making purposeful generosity more accessible and frictionless for all. He worked for over ten years as a consultant to nonprofit organizations, philanthropists, corporate leaders, and private equity investors, most recently with Bain & Company. He is a former US Army cavalry officer, holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management.

Charityvest is a fintech venture enabling the future of purposeful giving, specifically donor-advised funds. We partner with individual donors and wealth advisors to enable giving experiences that catalyze more generosity.

Organizational Needs: We are looking to sharpen our wealth advisor go-to-market focus and grow our go-to-market execution precision accordingly.

Raising: Yes

Amount Raising: $3 M

Kirsten is the cofounder of Cloverleaf.me—a B2B SaaS platform that provides Automated Coaching™ to over 20,000 teams in the biggest brands across the globe—where she oversees all things Product and Brand. She often speaks on the power of diversity of thought and psychologically safe cultures, including her TEDx talk; a podcast called “People are Complicated”; LinkedIn Live events with talent, learning, and Development Leaders; and her upcoming book, Thrive: A Manifesto for a New Era of Collaboration. While building Cloverleaf, Kirsten has also been building her young family in Cincinnati, OH, where she lives with her husband and two young kids.

Cloverleaf is an Automated Coaching platform that turns behavioral assessments (i.e. DiSC and CliftonStrengths™) into micro-learning nudges. With customers spanning the globe and representing some of the largest brands, Cloverleaf sends millions of coaching tips each month into people's emails, calendars and messaging apps. These tips are tailored to each individual's context, personality style, and interactions, making them not only highly valued, but also highly effective at developing emotional intelligence and increasing performance. While Cloverleaf scales personalized coaching to everyone, it certainly does not replace human coaches, and in fact has partnerships with hundreds of coaches and consultants. Ideal buyers are leaders in Talent/Development/Learning in organizations of over 1,000 employees, although departmental executives are often the first touchpoint.

Organizational Needs:
Cloverleaf invented Automated Coaching and the founders are always seeking connections to people who have successfully crafted a new market category.
Cloverleaf is currently recruiting a Head of Sales as well as a Head of Marketing.

Raising: No

Amount Raising: N/A

William is Co-Founder of Forte. Prior to Forte, William spent approximately ten years in private equity, venture capital, and investment banking, along with over five years pursuing entrepreneurial endeavors. He loves finding unique investment opportunities, working with people, and helping them become the best version of themselves. William has an MBA from Stanford and a BS in Finance from the University of Alabama. He is the the Co-Founder of Faith Driven Entrepreneur and podcast co-host. He is married to a wonderful woman named Deb and has three kids, Liam, Eloise, and Henry.

Vineet is the CEO and Co-Founder of Forte. Prior to Forte, Vineet founded a lower-market private equity firm, served as a venture capitalist at Acumen America, and a consultant with the Skoll Foundation. Additionally, Vineet served as a Marine intelligence officer for 10+ years leading in Iraq, Afghanistan, as the first intelligence exchange officer to the UK Ministry of Defense, as a Congressional Fellow on Capitol Hill, and in the Pentagon. Vineet holds an MBA from Stanford, a master's from Cambridge, and BS from Drexel. Vineet resides in his hometown in Maryland with his wife, Sandhia, and their two children, Nehemiah & Neylah.

Forte is a comprehensive mental wellness platform empowering every employee to thrive professionally and personally. Backed by science and tailored for companies of all sizes, Forte delivers measurable ROI boosting long-term employee attraction, engagement, and retention.

Organizational Needs: Forte is looking to connect with people familiar with the franchise / hourly worker space. Specifically people that can help us accelerate sales in this vertical.

Raising: Yes

Amount Raising: $1 M

Samuel Joy, a former senior Digital Consultant for the Emirates Group and Advisor to the World Bank and the United Nations on Youth Employment, started Huntr out of frustration with the exploitative legacy hiring system used by enterprises in the Middle East that have unfortunately led to human trafficking problems. He brings years of employment and government coordination expertise to build trust and transparency in a deeply exploitative system. His work represents the Praxis Opportunity for Redemptive Innovation, Developing New Labor Models & “Good Jobs.”

Huntr is a blue-collar worker marketplace that helps enterprises (companies with 2k+ blue-collar employees) connect with training partners to source, manage, and onboard a large volume of the job-ready workforce.

Organizational Needs: Huntr seeks assistance in reducing the time needed to close enterprise sales.
Huntr is considering a new feature that involves demand simulation and supply forecasting. We are seeking assistance with pricing this feature.

Raising: Yes

Amount Raising: $750K

Justin Straight, Co-Founder and COO of LoanWell, is concurrently the COO of Thriving Cities Group. Justin has 18 years of progressive business development, finance, and operations experience across the private and multinational sectors. Justin brings a strong management and financial background to the team, including extensive experience in micro-economic development managing and starting private sector microfinance banks in Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Peru, and the Dominican Republic.

Bernard Worthy, Co-Founder and CEO of LoanWell, is a third-generation entrepreneur with a passion to see capital access and affordability democratized across communities of color in an effort to drive generational wealth. Bernard has leveraged his gifting for software architecture, design, and development for startups to Fortune 100 companies and now leads that effort at LoanWell. LoanWell is an automated lending platform to help community lenders deploy more capital, more efficiently. LoanWell is a Google for Startups, Google Black Founders Fund, Impact America Fund, Soft Bank Opportunity Fund, and Collab Capital portfolio company. Bernard is a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill Business School with distinction and a Robertson Scholar. He is married to Lauren and father to Evelyn Grace and Maya Lou.

LoanWell is an automated and AI enabled loan origination platform for CDFIs, loan funds, and credit unions with end-to-end functionality for intake, underwriting, closing, servicing, and reporting. Through products like our End to End Loan Origination System, Underwriting as a Service, and our Loan Referral Marketplace, our sights are set on creating systemic change in our industry so that smaller CDFI lenders can compete with the online lenders that dominate with high interest rates and/or predatory products.

Organizational Needs: LoanWell is actively advancing its mission by launching a regional and nationwide Loan Referral Marketplace, designed to auto-match SMB applicants with CDFI lenders. A pivotal challenge in scaling this initiative is optimizing lead generation and securing partners that align with LoanWell’s strategic objectives.

LoanWell is exploring both traditional and non-traditional lead sources to expand its approach to customer acquisition. Traditional sources have included lead generators and brokers, which often come with high costs. In contrast, non-traditional sources such as credit unions or banks with clients they cannot service, CPAs, and business coaches, are being considered for more cost-effective and relevant leads.

In addition to these strategies, LoanWell is also focusing on enhancing its digital marketing efforts, particularly through targeted email campaigns and sophisticated digital advertising strategies. Recognizing the expertise within this mentor network, LoanWell seeks advice on crafting high-conversion email sequences and developing digital ad campaigns that can effectively attract and convert high-quality leads. These strategies are vital as they provide scalable ways to reach and engage potential SMB applicants directly.

Currently, LoanWell is in the late stages of negotiations to close a promising partnership model with DreamSpring and USC Credit Union. This model, pairing a well-capitalized CDFI with operational deficiencies with a credit union that lacks in-house lending services, demonstrates significant potential. Success in this partnership could serve as a blueprint for leveraging similar non-traditional entities for lead generation.

Given the regional constraints associated with CDFI lending, pursuing localized, non-traditional lead sourcing, enhanced by robust digital marketing strategies, remains a strategic focus. LoanWell is eager to engage with mentors to brainstorm further innovative lead sourcing strategies and digital marketing techniques that can help effectively expand its network and ensure a robust and sustainable referral system.

Raising: Yes

Amount Raising: $1.6 M

After serving in the US Marines as a Captain for eight years, Aeron started a technology company in the legal marijuana industry. The company grew in value and prestige very quickly. From this, Aeron was named in Inc Magazine's 30 entrepreneurs under 30 list. In 2016, Aeron had a radical encounter with Jesus that changed how he saw himself and the whole world. This led him to work at BibleProject. After an incredibly life-giving, challenging, growing, and exciting five years at BibleProject, he felt God leading him to start this newest venture, Pangea. Aeron is married, has two beautiful daughters, and resides in San Diego, CA.

Pangea is building embeddable currency infrastructure for the future. Our flagship product, Prime, provides companies institutional grade FX services purpose-built for modern digital companies. We also provide low-cost services to Global Non-Profits.

Organizational Needs: Potential Non-Profit Client Partners

Raising: Yes

Amount Raising: $5 M

Stephanie Cummings is the CEO and Co-Founder of Please Assist Me. She started Please Assist Me to eliminate the stress associated with household management. Previously, Stephanie worked with a healthcare IT startup that was later acquired by Fortune 1000. In her last role, she was responsible for program oversight of a new product that realized over $1M in revenue during its first year. Stephanie received her master’s Degree in Business Administration from Middle Tennessee State University and currently resides in Washington, DC.

Rashad Cummings, Co-founder and COO of Please Assist Me, joined the company as it began to pursue apartment/condos as an acquisition strategy. Through his experience working with several properties in the Nashville area from 2015 to 2018, he was able to assist in seamlessly integrating Please Assist Me into properties. His experience in working on staff with high-rise condominiums was crucial in quickly and successfully expanding reach within complexes. Rashad has a degree in theology and currently lives in the Washington, DC area.

Please Assist Me is an home management app that allows busy individuals to come home to groceries in the refrigerator, a tidy house, clean laundry, finished errands, and more, all handled by a dedicated Please Assist Me assistant team. In addition to ​the benefit that Please Assist Me provides to customers, ​we are focused on changing the future of work in the home care and gig ​economy workforce by classifying employees as W-2 ​and providing clear frameworks for advancement and ​opportunity for a historically overworked, ​underappreciated, and underpaid workforce.

Organizational Needs: Raise venture and create a framework for a scalable culturable impact.

Raising: Yes

Amount Raising: $900K

Chris Tsai is Founder and CEO of Resolve, which provides a way for B2B suppliers to hassle-free payment terms to their customers without "being the bank." Previously, he was the co-Founder and CEO of Celery, a pre-order platform for launching and scaling new products, which went through Y Combinator and was acquired by Indiegogo. Chris studied quantitative marketing at Wharton and computer science at MIT and, he built his first PASCAL program when he was 12. Before creating Celery, he led Groupon’s expansion in Asia. Chris lives with his wife and 2 children in San Francisco.

Resolve is a spinout of Affirm that offers buy-now-pay-later solutions to help merchants and marketplaces grow their B2B sales with smarter net terms.

Resolve's mission is to grow transactions into relationships. At its core, commerce is communion between people. Resolve accelerates commerce by making net terms simple, embedded, and relational.

Resolve has raised $86M in capital and is backed by Insight Partners, Initialized Capital, PayPal/Affirm co-founder Max Levchin, and other top tier investors.

Organizational Needs: Resolve is planning to increasing debt funding capacity to manage 2024 asset growth. The team is investigating traditional and alternative asset funding structures. Input on structures and inquiries on participating are welcome.

Raising: No

Amount Raising: N/A

Jack is the Founder and CEO of Take Command Health. He has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, where he focused on entrepreneurial management, and an Engineering degree from Texas A&M. Jack spent six years as an analyst at the CIA and FBI -- helping top officials unravel data to understand risk and opportunity. In addition, he has management consulting and strategy experience with The Boston Consulting Group in Dallas and project management experience with Shell Oil Company in Houston. Jack is married to his better half, Brittany, and has three boys and a dog named Wally.

Take Command is a software platform focused on introducing a new model of defined contribution health insurance benefits to the market. Employers, instead of offering traditional one-size-fits-all group plans, can leverage the Take Command platform to provide employees with a tax-free allowance. Employees can then choose a plan that is best for them based on needs, doctors, prescription coverage, etc. This 401(k)-style of health benefits is based on the new Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangement (ICHRA) rules released in 2020.

Organizational Needs: Take Command is interested in better coaching, training, and equipping for our leadership team; creating a management training program for our junior managers; gaining operational efficiencies to work towards break-even.

Raising: No

Amount Raising: N/A

Wyatt Smith is founder and CEO of UpSmith, a tech company on a mission to combat America’s skilled worker crisis. Prior to UpSmith, Wyatt led business development for Elevate, Uber’s aerial ridesharing business unit. He also served as a McKinsey consultant and as a corps member with Teach for America, receiving the 2013 Sue Lehmann Award as a national teacher of the year. Wyatt holds an MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School and a BS in human & organizational development and political science from Vanderbilt University. He lives in Dallas, TX, with his wife Meg and sons Ford and Hank.

UpSmith is a technology company addressing labor shortages, with an initial focus on skilled trades. The company develops software to maximize workforce productivity: As an example, UpSmith's Boost product uses recognition and rewards to motivate revenue-generating behavior for service technicians. UpSmith's redemptive mission aims to recruit, reward, and retain a new generation of builders.

Organizational Needs: UpSmith is actively seeking customers for its Boost product, which helps service technicians produce more revenue and earn more take-home pay through better adherence to best practices.

Raising: No

Amount Raising: N/A