Grid110

Grid110 was founded with the desire to build community where it felt one didn’t exist and to foster a more inclusive ecosystem where diverse entrepreneurs could thrive. The focus is to activate community and help entrepreneurs realize sustainable growth paths that allow them to scale their businesses (and teams) right here in Los Angeles.

The larger mission of Grid110 is to create a more inclusive startup ecosystem in Los Angeles by empowering diverse entrepreneurs, championing innovative ideas and ultimately supporting the growth of a vibrant community. Grid110’s goal is to make the entrepreneurial path more equitable, inclusive and accessible. 

Our Program

Our 3-month virtual program to support early-stage teams (1-5) with defining/refining their milestones and addressing specific needs through weekly roundtables, 1:1 mentoring, and skills development sessions. The program allows founders to focus on their day-to-day business operations, while layering in critical support where needed. Following the 3 month program, we continue to provide support through office hours, workshops and events as we track the on-going progress of our companies.

Economic growth suffers when entrepreneurial activity is unevenly spread socio-economically, demographically, and geographically. In order for entrepreneurs to create new business ventures, they need access to resources and a level-playing field on which to compete. By investing in developing key programs, community and network, Grid110 has created an approach that works for community members, builds successful launchpads for small businesses and entrepreneurs, and keeps them connected long after they exit the program. Accelerator programs are not a new concept, but most often lack representation when it comes to women and people of color. They also typically focus solely on hyper growth companies, whereas Grid110 supports across the spectrum of entrepreneurship, from brick & mortar companies to sustainable growth companies to venture scale companies.

73% of Angelenos identify as a person of color, but our startup ecosystem does not reflect that. The path to success as a startup founder is starkly homogenous and typically attributed to access to networks, capital and critical resources that marginalized communities have been locked out of. We’re working to level the playing field and create a pathway that is more accessible and inclusive through our program and community development. Given the mere fraction of funding/loans allocated to women and people of color particularly, it’s imperative that support be prioritized to historically marginalized communities in an effort to level the playing field for economic mobility.

We believe our organization at its core and our programs are incredibly well aligned with the focus of this challenge. Our programs specifically seek to provide support and resources to historically overlooked and underinvested entrepreneurs. Given the mere fraction of funding/loans allocated to women and people of color particularly, it’s imperative that support be prioritized to historically excluded communities in an effort to level the playing field for economic mobility.

Through our programs, we have created a diverse community of tech companies, brick and mortar small businesses, and founders from all backgrounds provides a varying perspective that exposes a new way of thinking for each respective founder. A software company founder can learn something about servicing customers from a coffee shop owner, who can learn something about growth and scale from that software founder. Entrepreneurship has universal principles. We serve as the platform for connectivity, collaboration and community. 

Through our efforts, we've been able to support over 200 companies (70% led by women, 74% led by founders of color) in launching, growing and scaling within their communities. They have gone on to collectively raise nearly $80M in outside funding (venture capital, grants, crowdfunding) and have created over 500 jobs. Most recently, we've partnered with aligned organizations to provide direct access to capital in the form of non-dilutive grants and we hope to be able to continue to scale these efforts.

While we focus on building an inclusive community, we have attracted majority women and people of color to our programs given our mission, model and outcomes.

Our programs focus on entrepreneurs at the earliest (and most critical) stage of their company's journey. Women of color are starting businesses at a faster rate than any other demographic, having opened 89 percent of new businesses in 2019. Despite this, Black and Latina women only accounted for 0.64 percent of venture capital funding in 2018 and 2019. And yet women and ethnically diverse founding teams are outperforming their all-white, male peers, but they’re still the least likely to raise funding. According to a recent industry report by All Raise and Pitchbook, women CEOs have exited companies faster than their male counterparts in nine of the last 10 years.

We believe our program model provides entrepreneurs with critical access to mentorship, key resources (legal, finance, sales/marketing), funding, and a connected community. This results in growth not only for the entrepreneur and their company, but the broader region and economy.

While our organization is based in California and primarily focuses on entrepreneurs in the Los Angeles area, we recently launched a program that was open to entrepreneurs nationwide. Participating companies were based in Texas, Oklahoma, Ohio, New York, Georgia, Washington, D.C. The virtual nature of our programs enables us to reach a larger geographic audience than if we were to focus on a city by city approach. Our intent is to scale up these efforts with support of this grant.

Our mission is to foster the most thriving, inviting & inclusive community for entrepreneurs. We believe that anyone with the goal of becoming an entrepreneur should have the chance to pursue it and receive support along the way. Our work impacts individuals who are often overlooked by traditional startup ecosystems -- that’s what drives us to make the entrepreneurial path more equitable, inclusive and accessible.

Our theory of change is that if you pair entrepreneurs (both aspiring and established) with subject matter mentors, community and curriculum, that you will see two types of outcomes. One will be economic (business created, jobs created, revenue generated, funds raised) and one will be social (supported historically underrepresented communities). The economic impact will be community reinvestment, improving the business success rate and improving the ranking of the city, while the social impact will see a redistribution of well and more inclusive access to resources.

Money goes where money flows. If we can close the access to capital gap for historically underfunded founders, we will see greater wealth creation opportunities and reinvestment back into those communities.

Current: 180

One Year: 40

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