What $100k From Google Does For Us: Validation & Velocity

We are honored and ecstatic to announce our $100,000 in non-dilutive funding from Google for Startups’ Black Founders Fund. The Black Founders Fund was created because of the belief

“that funding Black founders fuels generational change. Racial equity is inextricably linked to economic opportunity. Google is uniquely positioned to provide capital and support to help founders grow their businesses, and in turn, create space for founders to succeed and create greater impact for their community.”

And we could not agree more. This non-dilutive funding from Google carries incredible weight. In addition to giving us significant runway for the development of our product, it signals something equally, if not more valuable, validation.

Validation takes on many other forms: product-market-fit, Series A-Z investment, and likes/comments/follows/subscribers, but it centers around a singular idea that your idea/product/service matters and deserves to exist — that there’s a place for your idea in this world.

Validation is in low supply and extremely high in demand. Billion-dollar businesses have been built on people’s need for validation, and many ideas have fizzled away because of a lack of it.

In building Staat, we’ve taken a more difficult approach. We are completely bootstrapped and have been building in quiet for the last year — growing without the typical milestones that many other startups use to signal validation. We’ve built based on a belief in ourselves. This funding is one of the first meaningful measures of external validation and belief in us.

Validation by itself is a milestone, but we need to take this validation to the next level: velocity. This funding gives us the rare opportunity to be completely focused on Staat, with absolutely no distractions. As a founding team, we’re able to absorb ourselves into the business, and more importantly, into our customers. We’ll be able to add critical team members and build onto the culture we’ve meticulously built.

Although we anticipate a lot of changes in the upcoming months, one thing that will remain is our relentless belief in our product and our team.

Thank you Google, Google for Startups, Black Founders Fund, Jewel, and everyone else involved.

Please check out more on Google’s blog and the Black Founders Fund page.

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