Street Entrepreneurs is hosting its annual Street Pitch competition on Dec. 15

Seven local founders have been selected as finalists to pitch at Street Entrepreneurs’ upcoming Street Pitch 2020 competition.

The five-year-old D.C.-based, community-driven accelerator and nonprofit provides entrepreneurs in its program with opportunities for mentorship, access to capital, networking and educational workshops. Street Entrepreneurs hosts an annual pitch competition each fall, which was coined “the People’s Shark Tank” by its founder and CEO Juliana Cardona Mejia. Since its first competition in 2018, the nonprofit has already been livestreaming the main event and it will continue to do so this year, with plans to add to the complete virtual experience.

Street Pitch, which culminate’s the nonprofit’s educational accelerator program, will livestream on Street Entrepreneurs’ social media pages on Tuesday, Dec. 15, at 7 p.m. The event will also be virtually casted through more than 100 partner organizations, Mejia said in a statement.

Following strict COVID-19 safety protocols, Mejia said, pitches from the seven finalist entrepreneurs were pre-filmed at landmarks across every ward in the District. These entrepreneurs will be pitching to a panel of judges, angel investors and community partners with the ultimate goal of securing funding. Virtual audience members will also have a chance to make investments, too.

Each pitch will receive feedback from three judges relevant to their sector they work in, per a press release. Some members of the judging panel includes Meghan Gaffney Buck, founder and CEO of Veda Data; Rachel Koretsky, founder and CEO of Upace; Maurice Boissiere, chief customer officer at DataTribe; and Emmanuel Kaska, partner at 1863 Ventures.

Here are the Street Pitch 2020 pitching entrepreneurs:

• Charanor Marcano, founder of Charanor
• Fabrice Guerrier, founder of Syllble Studios
• Jessica Dew, founder of CLIQQ
• Maddie Boening, founder of Sunstone Candles
• Paul Joseph, founder of Vegan Skin by Paul Joseph
• Ruth Rau, founder of Mouse Loves Pig
• Walter Pearson, founder of College Bound Parenting

Check out the Street Pitch website for more information about the founders and companies pitching tomorrow.

Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Street Entrepreneurs has hosted 60 virtual workshops focused on marketing, public relations, design thinking, sales, and other pain points entrepreneurs are thinking about as they build companies. The nonprofit also hosted town hall events to organize a COVID-19 small business response team.

To further support the finalist entrepreneurs presenting at Street Pitch 2020, Street Entrepreneurs launched a silent auction on Nov. 27 that is has extended through tomorrow. All of the proceeds will be split between the finalists during the pitch event. Check out the available items here.