3rd Annual Pitch Pardi: Virtual Edition Invests in Five Black Tech Start-ups
Black founders from the Midwest virtually competed for a chance to win $32K in cash and resources
Indianapolis, IN., -- February 22, 2020 -- Forced to postpone the annual Pardi Gras Ball, Be Nimble Foundation still found a way for the show to go on in order to serve out its mission to create fully diverse and inclusive tech ecosystems. The organization hosted their third annual Pitch Pardi competition, virtually on Thursday, February 18, 2021. The annual pitch competition expanded its footprint this year, allowing Black founders from Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky to participate.
Led by Be Nimble Foundation Co-Founders Kelli N. Jones, Jeff Williams and their team, this event brought in over $32,000 in sponsorships to be used as cash prizes for the Black tech founders who won. Pitch Pardi highlighted 10 of the best and brightest Black tech startup founders from Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky. These founders pitched their ideas to a panel of judges for a chance to win $15,000, $10,000, $5,000 and two $1,000 cash investment, along with legal, business, design, and marketing resources that will help scale their business. The event was sponsored by Bacardi, Comcast, Old National and Gutwein Law. This year’s winners were:
● Grand Prize Winner: Founded by Samuel Baddoo, Fleri brings peace of mind and financial stability to immigrants by enabling them to provide health insurance to their loved ones back home from right here in the US.
● Second Place Winner: Sip and Share Wines, founded by Nicole Kearney, is a boutique winery passionate about creating community with vegan wine for wine lovers overlooked and underrepresented by the wine industry.
Third Place Winner: Inphlu, founded by Joshua Reid, is a 100% automated AI-powered, social media management platform designed for small businesses and nonprofits.
● Fourth Place Winner: Katara McCarty, founder of Exhale App, an app based emotional well-being resource for Black, Indegenous, People of Color.
Fifth Place Winner: AIXA founded by Dorsh Deans is an open source, multi-dialect, virtual assistant using culturally inclusive Natural-Language Process datasets to bring modern voice technology to ALL.
With the Pardi Gras Ball’s economic impact on the city exceeding $1M, it has become a staple in Indy’s young, black tech community. Unfortunately, the pandemic suddenly halted plans for the fifth annual Pardi Gras Ball. Be Nimble Foundation has had to pivot and will be planning to host the next Pardi Gras Ball in 2022 .
About Be Nimble Foundation
Be Nimble Foundation is a 501(c)(3) social enterprise taking a qualitative and quantitative approach to creating fully diverse and inclusive tech ecosystems. Our career training and placement programs up-skill unemployed, under-employed, and career-transitioners who are interested in careers in the tech industry. Our entrepreneurship programs support Black and Latinx tech start-up founders to get them the resources, support and funding they need to build high-growth, high-scale tech companies.