Backstage Tour 2020
Celebrating underestimated founders in cities around the world
We are super excited to announce Backstage Tour 2020! 🚍 That’s right. We’re bringing Backstage to cities in the US and beyond to celebrate underestimated founders and the ecosystems that help them grow.
In each city, we’ll host an event featuring a pitch competition where vetted underrepresented founders will present to a live audience and a panel of investors for the chance to win an investment from Backstage. Attendees will also be able to join premium workshops where founders can build skills to accelerate their business progress, and existing and aspiring investors can boost their investment acumen.
We want to get the whole community out — investors, founders, and ecosystem builders and experts. It’s going to be an incredible place to make valuable connections in each local ecosystem. We plan to kick off the tour in May 2020. Stay tuned for more details!
Accelerator Recap
We successfully wrapped Accelerator Cohort 1 in Detroit, London, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia! It was an amazing opportunity to find, invest in, and support talented founders, and we appreciated working with partners in each city’s local ecosystem.
It took a village! The support from our Launch partners Microsoft for Startups and MailChimp was incredible. We couldn’t have built and launched Accelerator without them. It was especially helpful to have their insight as we built our programming, and their support for our founders throughout the program. Microsoft for Startups’ Noga Tal led a fantastic expert workshop for the companies on how to build and leverage corporate partnerships. Google for Startups is also a valuable partner, and Cohort 1 founders enjoyed visits to the YouTube LA offices and sessions on SEO from Google experts.
For more details on Accelerator, check out our Cohort 1 report, which includes our program overview, features on our latest 24 companies, and key learnings we discovered along the way. While we’re not immediately launching a Cohort 2, we look forward to connecting with even more founders and folks in more startup ecosystems worldwide through our upcoming tour.
For Founders
Starting in October, we’re hosting in-person office hours for founders in the following locations where you can get access to high-level business expertise.
- Detroit, Michigan
- Los Angeles, California
- Brooklyn, New York
- London, United Kingdom
We’ll also be hosting virtual office hours each month for founders who may not be in these cities. Want to meet with our Crew via office hours to get help with things like pitch practice and actionable feedback on your business? Sign up now.
When we have funding opportunities available, you’ll be able to apply through open applications. Check out our website, and stay tuned to the Mixtape newsletter to find out as soon as they open.
For Partners, Ecosystem Builders, and Economic Development Groups
If you or your organization would like to work together to support diverse entrepreneurs and ecosystems through Backstage Tour 2020, we’re excited to explore possibilities with you! Let us know if you’d like to sponsor events, or if you want to help bring Backstage to your city.
At Backstage, we’re grateful and honored to provide underestimated founders with access to capital, tools, and resources. Backstage Tour 2020 is our next step on this journey. We’re excited to meet and work with many of you in cities around the world! 💜
