• Dr. Carol Epsy-Wilson, Founder + CTO
• omnispeech.com, @omnispeech
• Founded 2009
• Backstage Capital, Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship

Profile 15 : OmniSpeech

About

OmniSpeech is an innovative software technology company that aims to revolutionize the enhancement of voice communication in speech-enabled applications and in digital mobile devices.

OmniSpeech’s groundbreaking speech extraction technology, OmniClear, provides highest quality background noise reduction and speech enhancement, delivering superior voice quality and intelligibility in a software-only solution.

Founded by world-renowned electrical engineer, Dr. Carol Espy-Wilson, and based on decades of research into the physiology of human speech, OmniSpeech takes a novel approach to the challenge of ensuring clear speech in noisy environments.

“I became interested in noise problems while attending a workshop at NSF. People from various companies discussed issues with deploying speech technology over VOIP and dealing with everyday noise. Because of my training at MIT where we focused on understanding what’s unique about speech and understanding how it is produced. I could use my knowledge to deal with removing noise to help improve voice communications.”

~Moguldom

• Kellee James, Chris Duesing
• Mercaris.com,  @mercaris
• Founded 2012
•  

Profile 14 : Mercaris

About

Mercaris is a market data service and trading platform for organic, non-GMO and other identity-preserved agricultural commodities.

Mercaris was formed to address this gap through two types of services. First, they provide up-to-date, accurate information on market conditions for organic and non-GMO commodities. Second, their trading platform allows buyers and sellers to meet online and trade physical commodities.

Prior to Mercaris, Kellee spent five years at the start-up company Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), the first electronic trading platform and registry for spot, futures and options on carbon, sulfur, clean energy and other environmental derivatives. In 2009 she was appointed by President Barack Obama as a White House Fellow and was Crain’s Chicago Business Magazine ’40 under 40’ rising leader. 

• Kim and Tim Lewis
•  Curlmix.com, @curlmix
• Founded 2015
• Backstage Capital

Profile 13 : Curlmix

About

CurlMix is a clean beauty brand for all types of curly hair. Their innovative take on clean beauty hair products has won them praise from top industry publications such as Refinery29, Essence Magazine, Ebony Magazine, and ABC TV.

After quitting her first job fresh out of college (2013), Kim threw herself into the beauty space. With a growing love of her new natural hair and a love for educating other women, her mission to empower other curly women began. Knowing they’d need some capital to start their first business, Kim had the bright idea to sign Tim up for Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. He went on to win $100,000 and invest in their first business. Crazy right?!

Their journey into entrepreneurship was born. After their first failed startup of a niche social network, she and her husband Tim launched CurlMix (2015), which started as a Do-It-Yourself box for curly hair. 

After two years of stagnation, Kim sought advisors and pivoted CurlMix with a newborn on her hip. They turned their best-selling boxes into a hair care line (Jan 2018).

~CurlMix.com

• Damola Ogundipe, Yemi Adewunmi, Shawntera Hard, Ken Thompson
• CivicEagle.com, @Civic_Eagle
• Founded 2015
• Backstage Capital, Right Side Capital Management, Techstars, Higher Ground Labs

Profile 12 : Civic Eagle

About

Civic Eagle provides workflow solutions for public policy professionals to get the most out of legislative intelligence.

Civic Eagle’s SaaS platform leverages artificial intelligence to help organizations reduce the time and costs to identify, track, and analyze legislation and regulations from across the country.

Enview does the discovery work, so your team can focus on winning your policy campaigns. 

With home bases in Atlanta, Minneapolis, and Washington, D.C., Civic Eaglelaunched three years ago under the rallying cry, “Everyone deserves an educated point of view on democracy.” Its mobile-first platform beckoned users to engage in video conversations about topics of the day, while keeping fact-based dialogue and civility front and center.

“We recognized that a lot of advocacy groups — from national organizations like the NAACP to those in individual states — had a tough time understanding and keeping track of legislation, and we wanted to help [them] to advocate for legislation that’s good for society,” Ogundipe explained.

~Medium

Melanie Igwe +Kwaku Owusu, Co-founders

• Kwaku Owusu,Melanie Igwe
• ilerasoft.com, @ilerasoft
• Founded 2017
•  

Profile 11 : Ilerasoft

About

Ilerasoft was founded to create a new standard in healthcare and reduce the cost of healthcare. The Efficiency Score is like a credit score for medical equipment scoring medical equipment based on utilization and 16 inputs unique to your hospital and patient population to help managers make better purchasing and operational decisions.

Co-founder and CEO, Kwaku Owusu discovered massive inefficiencies around medical equipment utilization while working as a consultant for a large health system in New York. He founded Ilerasoft to provide a solution that plagued most hospitals and was a systemic issue. 

Co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer, Melanie Igwe, was inspired to join forces with Kwaku to launch Ilerasoft after witnessing unnecessary deaths and injuries due to medical devices.

~Backstage Capital

Jessica O. Matthews, Founder + CEO

• Jessica O. Matthews
• u-pwr.co,  @upowerco
• Founded 2011
• Backstage Capital, NIC Fund, Kapor Capital, Lingo Ventures, BBG Ventures, Magic Johnson Enterprises

Profile 10 : Uncharted Power

About

New York-based Uncharted Power is a full-service power infrastructure technology company on a mission to democratize energy access worldwide. Using a patented suite of technologies, they build, own, and operate power infrastructure to provide communities with energy that is both clean and low cost.

Founder + CEO Jessica O. Matthews invented the SOCCKET, an energy-generating soccer ball, at Harvard University, and realized that the world of play and motion held untapped potential for tangibly addressing real issues we face as a global society. Jessica was invited by President Barack Obama to the White House to represent small companies for the signing of the America Invents Act in 2012. In 2016, she raised what is presently the largest Series A ever raised by a black female founder in history, and was selected to ring the NASDAQ opening ceremony bell, representing all Forbes 30 Under 30 alumna. The Uncharted Power team has evolved into a talented, diverse team pioneering innovation within the renewable energy field.

Uncharted Power’s remarkable progress has been featured by Popular Mechanics, Inc., CNN, and the Colbert Report. 

~Backstage Capital

• Kadion and Tennyson Preston
• CaribShopper.com@caribshopper
• Founded 2015
• TechStars Atlanta 2018

Profile 8 : carib shopper

About

Carib Shopper’s platform enables underbanked customers in developing nations with the ability to participate in e-commerce by providing them with accessible cash-to-credit facilities and simplified freight-forwarding.

Carib Shopper simplifies the shipping, delivery and the exchange-rate process. Carib Shopper also provides a platform for entrepreneurial island residents to sell their products around the world.

Jamaica-born brothers Kadion and Tennyson Preston launched the e-commerce site Carib Shopper in 2016. The platform helps Caribbean-born people buy products they grew up on — and miss — from more than 150 online retailers in the U.S. ~Moguldom

The Preston brothers said their idea was born from necessity and inspiration through their mother’s entrepreneurial spirit. “Her dream was to bring greater access to the Caribbean market. She didn’t quite get there…. But we are picking up where she left off,” Tennyson said.

• Melissa Hanna
• Mahmee.com, @getmahmee
• Founded 2014
• Backstage Capital, 500 Startups

Profile 7 : MAHMEE

About

Mahmee is a Los Angeles-based prenatal and postpartum care management platform on a mission to increase positive health outcomes for moms and babies. Mahmee provides personalized, ongoing postpartum support to new moms and their babies, via a HIPAA-secure platform that makes it easy for hospitals, health systems, and their patients to coordinate comprehensive prenatal and postpartum healthcare from anywhere.

Melissa Hanna is the co-founder of Mahmee, a Los Angeles-based prenatal and postpartum care management platform that looks to increase positive health outcomes for moms and babies.

“One of the challenges underrepresented founders, like myself, are facing today is we don’t have the typical backgrounds compared with the previous generation of founders in Silicon Valley,” she told Business Insider. “We don’t fit into the San Francisco, Palo Alto white boys club.”

Hanna founded Mahmee in Los Angeles with her mother, Linda Hanna, in 2014 when they saw the disconnect between large healthcare providers and the networks of independent maternity care professionals who are not doctors, like nutritionists or lactation specialists.

~Business Insider

• Chazz Sims
•  wisesystems.com, @goWiseSystems
• Founded 2014
• Mass Challenge, TechStars,
  Gradient Ventures

Profile 6 : Wise Systems

About

Wise Systems is an Autonomous Dispatching and Routing solution that empowers operations teams and drivers to improve fleet efficiency and customer service, seamlessly adapting to the everyday challenges they encounter. Automatically schedule routes, monitor routes in progress, and watch the system intelligently adjust to day-of delays. Cloud-based with machine learning, Wise Systems is an all-in-one platform that can be used on its own or one module at a time. 

Founder Story Nugget

• “Started out of MIT by a team with deep expertise in logistics, data science, machine learning, and design, the Wise team has always shared a focus on solving mobility issues by understanding patterns. In fact, in the early days of the company, the founders spent more time asking for data than investment, but that turned out to be a very good decision.”
• ~ Wise Systems Website