Tales from a Female VC: Accelerate
Could you tell me about what you are working on at WIFAX? Could you discuss your accelerator briefly?
The Women’s Innovation Fund Accelerator is an Opportunity Zone Fund with 3 prongs in their mission. First, is that we use acceleration techniques to grow and scale emerging tech companies. Second, companies must be gender balanced at the C-Level. Third, we help the companies become sustainable. We work with under-represented founders and inside the local communities to bring forth the next generation workforce, entrepreneur and investor.
Our fund is creating its own IP around ecosystem building, funding structures and sustainability.
Our accelerator is unique in that we prepare companies to become fundable and sustainable. We provide 6-weeks of intensive due diligence, in which we package the companies for funding, and 2 weeks of sustainability to help them create a viable long term plan. Our accelerator is fully virtual and online so we can serve more founders and they can interact with our ecosystem better.
Why is it important for accelerators to encourage applications from underrepresented founders? How do you think inclusive accelerators will impact the future of business and technology?
It’s important for accelerators to have a broad spectrum of founders so that the unique ways the companies are solving problems have the same opportunities for access to capital. Our accelerator helps companies become prepared for current and future funding rounds, no matter if they are from angels, VCs or crowdfunding.
We create unique structures around funding, syndication and other traditional models that help under-represented founders maximize their chance to gain access to funding, as we look well into the future to how they might exit.
Inclusive accelerators will be more successful, since the companies they serve tap into more global markets, are B2B driven, and solve global problems. Since we like gender balance, the statistics on funding women and diverse founders shows the ROIs, profitability and success KPIs are larger.
Do you have some diverse AI portfolio companies you’d like to highlight? Could you speak to how these companies are increasing the efficacy & accuracy of AI?
Fuego Fino, Inc is one of our portfolio companies that uses AI and data to maximize the efficiency of their supply chain. Without AI, the traditional spreadsheet method would track all this information. It’s rife with potential mistakes, which can affect the company’s revenues. When, what and how much to order and reorder products is critical.
“We are a progressive wine and spirits house, which embraces technology. We have begun to explore the use of AI and other tech to reduce costs in our supply chain — specifically developing a smarter way of managing how alcohol retailers order and reorder our products. We also use technology to analyze in real time, the results of our marketing efforts,” says Fuego Fino Founder Jessica Contreras. Fuego Fino has successfully completed the WIFAX accelerator program and has begun to raise capital through a Regulation CF crowdfunding round available at https://fgfino.com.
WIF AX leads rounds for crowdfunding campaigns as part of its “Invest Alongside Our VC” inclusive-investing funding model for accelerator graduates and female founders.
Anything else you would like to add?
To apply to the accelerator, please go to: https://wifaxvc.com/academy
For more information on Fuego Fino, please go to: https://fgfino.com
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