Ready to Scale on the West Coast?
Photo credit: surfcityusadotcom.
The Long Beach Accelerator may be for you.
Last week I had the opportunity to lead a workshop on Customer Discovery and Validation at the newly launched Long Beach Accelerator.
Founders, now you have the opportunity to engage with the Long Beach Accelerator as the applications are now open for its second cohort to begin in the Summer of 2021. $75,000 to $100,000 of equity funding is offered backed by excellent programming (if I do say so myself), mentorship, municipal support, and corporate partnerships.
The Long Beach Accelerator (LBA) is a public-private partnership of investors, related businesses, academia, and the economically dynamic West Coast city of Long Beach, California. Entrepreneurs spanning diverse sectors such as HealthTech, SpaceTech, CleanTech, EduTech, FinTech, Entertainment & New Media, SafetyTech, Supply and Transportation Logistics, and Tourism (among other sectors) are attracted to Long Beach and will find support in the Long Beach Accelerator.
The initial promising cohort consists of Ownors, Delphire Inc, Parkplace, Evolectric, Storybolt, Localight, and SolarView. The Long Beach Accelerator is led by the very capable Andrea White-Kjoss, board chairperson Dr. Wade Martin, John Keisler (Economic Development Director of the City of Long Beach), and John Shen of Sunstone Investments.
This is a great opportunity for both US and internationally based ventures looking to realize large market potential. The early bird deadline is March 19, 2021 with a start date of June 14, 2021.
The Long Beach Accelerator is highly supportive of underrepresented founders. Awesome women founders, this is a call out to you. Everyone is welcome.
About the City of Long Beach. Long Beach is a highly innovative city which hosts the largest adjacent ports of North America and all the related supply and transportation logistics, its own airport, a booming aerospace hub now focused on SpaceTech, multiple medical centers, a highly prized public university, community college, and school system in a 466 thousand-person multicultural city which is the historical capital of the US film industry. Long Beach attracts elite athletic events (volleyball, sailing, rowing, swimming, diving), the Long Beach Grand Prix, diverse tourism and conferences with its various ocean side facilities, world-class aquarium, multiple museums, the Queen Mary, and conference sites. Long Beach has its own health department, which has gained recent national recognition for a smooth roll out of the Covid-19 vaccine. Southern California’s Alliance for SoCal Innovation represents this strong and growing venture ecosystem.
Joy Fairbanks is Managing Principal of Fairbanks Venture Advisors, a full service consultancy to early stage ventures and their financial backers. Joy is a member of the Long Beach Accelerator Admissions Committee.