Impact Ventures Set To launch Startup Accelerator Focused On Empowering Women & Minorities in North Texas
Impact Ventures is set to kick off Dallas’s first minority focused tech accelerator program in March 2020. Applications to participate in the 12-week accelerator have opened and will close November 22nd, 2019. Impact Ventures, formerly Impact House, is a nonprofit organization taking a qualitative and quantitative approach to creating inclusive tech ecosystems in Dallas, TX and beyond. Impact Ventures aims to close the income and wealth gap for women and minorities through tech workforce development, inclusive entrepreneurship, and venture capital.
Founded in 2017, Impact Ventures has been a laying the foundation for creating inclusive tech ecosystems for underrepresented communities looking to break into the tech industry. With the presence of tech growing in Dallas and North Texas, Impact Ventures believes Dallas has all of the ingredients to be the next tech hotbed for minority professionals and entrepreneurs due to its robust corporate community, affordable cost of living, and business friendly tax benefits.
“We saw a glaring market opportunity in Dallas and wanted to do something about it, but we knew in order to address this gap we first had to both understand and measure it. Our first few years started with understanding the market through community building, stakeholder development, and data collection. We’ve done the groundwork, but now we’re ready to put some measurable impact behind our work.” — Impact Ventures Founder & CEO, Benjamin Vann
Impact Venture’s flagship 12wk accelerator program provides support for startups fitting the criteria of first being Women or Person of Color lead or Social Impact focused. Early-stage companies are also preferred to have a working product in the market — with some paying customers, be less than 5 years old, and less than $1M raised. The program also features a blended online and experiential learning experience driven by corporate “hacks”, dedicated mentors, dedicated venture fellows sourced from local university talent, a suite of discount business services like HubSpot for Startups official partner, Microsoft Azure Credits, business insurance, co-working, and access to Impact’s corporate and global investor partner network.
Impact Ventures has already reached capacity for its first three info sessions and will look to add more to the schedule. Impact is currently inviting more sponsors, donors, allies, and investment partners to the table who want to actively make significant contributions to address racial and gender gaps as it related to economic mobility in the rapidly growing tech industry. Industry wide as of 2018, just 2% of minorities received venture capital funding, 2% of minorities are represented in the tech industry workforce, and there’s projected to be over 1M open tech jobs by 2020. Impact Ventures is on a mission to change this.
To learn more about Impact Ventures upcoming accelerator program, visit www.impact-ventures.co/accelerator or follow on all social media at @impactventureco
About Impact Ventures
Impact Ventures, is a non-profit organization and startup accelerator dedicated to creating diverse and inclusive tech ecosystems in North Texas and beyond. We focus on the tech pipeline, closing the income and wealth gap for women and minorities through tech career pathways, inclusive entrepreneurship, and venture capital.
