Meet the 10 companies in Halcyon’s new program for Black and brown female founders

Founders pursuing solutions and innovations in education, housing and fashion are among the 10 inaugural members of the Halcyon incubator’s latest program for Black and Latinx female founders.

The Georgetown-based incubator’s Future Builders Intensive specifically seeks to support “Black and brown women entrepreneurs across the country,” according to Halcyon Managing Director Daniel Barker.

“It is a demographic that is among the fastest growing in terms of entrepreneurship, but also the least supported in terms of venture capital and startup ecosystem,” he told Technical.ly.

To try and bridge this gap, Halcyon tailored its social entrepreneurship-focused program model for an applicable group of founders from across the country. The Future Builders Intensive starts with virtual and in-person workshops focused on investment readiness, leadership development and legal considerations for startups. It culminates with a week-long residency at Halcyon and a pitch night. Each of the founders also receives a $5,000 grant.

Barker hopes each founder will walk away from the intensive with “the resources they need to scale their companies,” which he noted “ is going to be different for each founder.”

Prudence Minton, the founder of intensive participant Ikemba, praised the program in comments to Technical.ly.

“The fellowship and network is amazing!” she said. “I met so many like-minded folks who are building social ventures and the experience has been powerful.”

“In LA, where I’m from, I find most startups are focused on retail, aerospace or food,” said Toshe Ayo-Ariyo, founder of fellow intensive cohort member UInclude, to Technical.ly. “I love how many social impact startups there are in DC, and there is a real sense of community.”

Here are the members of the Future Builders Intensive’s inaugural cohort, with descriptions and founders’ names provided by Halcyon:

• “EZ Police Training’s (Eboni Green) software provides a completely virtual, 100% effective training experience. It can be used across mobile and digital devices, uses federal-grade AI to identify users and allows administrators to customize user experience/limitations.”
• “Ikemba (Prudence Minton) is a digital marketplace where educators can buy and sell high-quality resources while building community around a shared definition of culturally responsive pedagogy. [We] then we equip our partners to engage students as empowered advocates for themselves and others.”
• “Kalsoni (Muna Mohamed) is a purpose-driven lifestyle brand committed to positively impacting the health and well-being of women and girls by providing activewear that is culturally and faith-based inclusive, [as well as] embraces their individuality.”
• “LANDRIFT (Precious Price) is on a mission to help offset the global housing supply crisis by outlining lucrative and local small residential development projects for homeowners and connecting them to the resources and people to make it happen.”
• “LangInnov (Rocio Raña) provides innovative technology to improve educational outcomes for Latinx bilingual children.
• “Moremmé (Ore Adedoyin, Mayowa Agbaje-Williams and Janet Akande-Dokun) is developing a hormone-free combination of natural bioactives to treat vaginal atrophy (VA). Moremme is developing safe, effective, hormone-free formulations aimed at treating symptoms of VA in post-menopausal women.”
• “North Star (Kim Riley) is the indeed.com for youth with significant disabilities searching for job, college and life skills opportunities. It is a web-based college and career navigation platform for high school students with disabilities.”
• “Peace IQ (Sarah June Benjamin) is a training platform that upskills leaders and their teams to peacefully resolve conflict and build sustainable cooperation.”
• “PoGo (Politics on the Go) (Arabia Simeon) is a double-sided platform that provides a transparent, non-partisan personalized voter guide for Millennial and Gen Z voters. Our app streamlines the research process and provides a centralized hub for voting information.”
• “UInclude (Toshe Ayo-Ariyo) is an augmented writing platform that leverages machine learning and scientific research to identify and eliminate biased language in recruitment material that deter marginalized groups from applying for roles.”

Halcyon recently celebrated the residential component of the intensive with a brunch at Ìpàdé, a coworking space aimed at women of color in Dupont Circle. Ìpàdé was founded by Elizabeth Gay, an alum of the Black Girl Ventures x Halcyon Intensive program. Gay said she is proud “to create a community space for people to gather, celebrate, be productive and pursue their dreams.”

“We do co-working during the day and events at night,” she explained to Technical.ly. “People find inspiration here to keep going, and I hope they will see their dreams come to life as I have.”

Those interested in meeting the founders can do so either virtually or in person at the Future Builders Showcase on Thursday, Feb. 10, at 4 p.m.