Who we are
ABOUT BGV
OUR
Mission
Our mission is to provide underrepresented woman-identifying founders with access to community, capital, and capacity building in order to meet business milestones that lead to economic advancement through entrepreneurship.
Black Girl Ventures
tech-enabled
WE FUND & SCALE
$1million
REVENUE GENERATING BUSINESSES UNDER
founded by people who identify as underrepresented and woman.
We ignite civic engagement and hyperlocal infrastructure at the intersection of business support services, supplier diversity, social and financial capital.
OUR
Purpose
Founded in 2016 by Serial Entrepreneur and Computer Scientist Shelly Bell, The Black Girl Ventures Foundation (BGV) addresses the unique challenges Black/Brown women face in accessing social and financial capital to grow their businesses. The BGV Style pitch competition is the largest pitch competition globally for underrepresented women founders. It uniquely combines the premise of Shark Tank and Kickstarter by activating community participation in donating to support women-owned businesses directly. We have funded 450 women of color, held over 50 BGV Pitch Programs across 15 cities and served over 10,000 founders. BGV pitch participants are collectively generating over $10M in revenue and supporting 3,000 jobs. BGV currently has three signature programs (BGV Pitch, BGV NextGen, BGV Emerging Leaders) and is now the largest ecosystem builder for Black/Brown women founders on the East Coast.
To accelerate
100,000 Underrepresented
women-identifying
entrepreneurs
by shifting the idea of community building from being viewed solely as a community service to a valid and viable business offering to ensure the development and growth of small businesses.
We believe in a world where all ideas have a chance to succeed.
OUR
Pledge
History
FROM THE “RENT PARTY” TO THE
"GREEN BOOK" FOR ENTREPRENEURS
Black Girl Ventures began by supporting underrepresented women entrepreneurs through our crowdfunded pitch competition program. Modeled after the historic African-American “Rent Party,” the BGV Pitch offers a creative way to raise funds and build a community for founders who identify as women, underrepresented.
During a BGV Pitch, each founder has 3 minutes to pitch and a 3 minute Q&A from our Champions Panel. The audience then votes with their dollars via Raisify, our tech platform. The winners are the top 3 founders who receive the most votes. All participants become part of the BGV Cohort and have the opportunity to gain access to capital, connections, resources and exclusive updates. Through our expansion efforts, we are keeping the rent party going while working to help underrepresented founders navigate (Green Book) the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
We now have three signature programs:
BGV Emerging Leaders Fellowship (formerly known as the Change Agent fellowship)