We're GLOBAL & here to make a difference!
|
|
 A new year and new opportunities on the horizon in 2019 and beyond! We are excited to share our first newsletter and provide highlights on our organization, partner spotlights, success stories about our portfolio companies, and updates we find interesting for you. For those unacquainted, Envolve is a global non-profit, founded by the Libra Group, focusing on increasing entrepreneurship throughout the US and Greece, especially among our diverse and underserved communities. Every day, our team focuses on bolstering the odds for entrepreneurs domestically and internationally while thinking innovatively and creatively about how to bring impactful resources and solutions for our network.
The broader entrepreneurship landscape is thriving, and new ideas are brought to market each day. However, there remains too many that still struggle with accessing resources and acquiring the necessary capital to make their dreams a reality. As a non-profit organization, our goal is to galvanize industries and promote cross-sector collaboration to spur greater entrepreneurship for these individuals. Our efforts align across three pillars: Education, Resources and Awards. Envolve's aim is to provide insightful and actionable educational information, tangible digital resources, and facilitate our successful annual award startup/scale up funding competition.
It is my belief that there is greatness hidden across our country and just waiting to be engaged; we see it often, but it could be on a grander scale. Startups from communities of color, rural places, and under resourced communities here and abroad are often overlooked as a result of outlier success stories and pervasive narratives concerning what types of businesses are poised for growth. We can change this. Globally, brilliant ideas and innovation are paving the way for a new era of products, services, and local storefronts. Through collaboration, targeted intervention, and support, we can affect change, even possibly on a grand scale. It will not be easy, but we are committed to doing our part and taking action.
We encourage you to donate so we can continue to leverage innovative strategies to serve entrepreneurs domestically and internationally. Envolve invites you to join us in our efforts and thank you for your support to get more ENtrepreneurs-inVOLVEd!
Christopher R. Upperman
CEO
|
|
You should really pay attention to...
|
|
 We meet a lot of entrepreneurs during our travels. And our annual Envolve Award funding competition acknowledges the best and brightest startups. We'll spotlight some of these standout ventures and share their progress and success for you to learn more and spread the word.
Kristina Jones, Co-Founder of Court Buddy, a legal tech startup that instantly matches consumers with vetted solo attorneys based on the client’s budget, is a rising woman tech-entrepreneur you should watch closely!
In 2016, Co-Founders Kristina and James Jones won our annual entrepreneurship award for brilliant business ideas.
In 2017, Kristina became the 14th ever African American female founder to raise $1 million or more for her startup.
|
|
|
Applications from our 2018 award cycle are currently under review. After receiving a record number of applicants, we will be making announcements in late spring 2019. Please follow us on social media for more updates.
|
|
Updates from Abroad - Envolve Greece
|
|
 This past December, our Envolve Greece team hosted its inaugural Envolve Award Greece ceremony where 15 finalists representing nine industries across five cities in Greece were announced. Among them, eight winners were declared Envolve awardees and for the first time, members of the general public voted for their favorite business via our #GetEnvolved Award. Watch a recap of the evening!
|
|
#EnvolveEDU & the Ecosystem
|
|
|
Our mission spans across three pillars: Education, Resources, and Awards. In 2018 we started our #EnvolveEDU #EnvolveWOW (word of the week) across all social media platforms to expand knowledge and insight into common entrepreneurship terms, phrases, and jargon. Each newsletter we'll provide a snapshot of one of our words from the current month.
|
|
 Due diligence is an important process in establishing confidence among potential investors, consultants, or anyone interested in supporting your venture strategically, operationally, or monetarily. The due diligence process may be lengthy and extensive, but we can always make it easier on ourselves by being proactive.
Check out this article to learn some useful strategies for navigating the process.
|
|
 Following last year's announcement of our 2018 Envolve Award application launch which included our expansion to 6 new cities, our team went on tour to Atlanta, Charleston, Detroit, Flint, Miami, and New York for workshops and Q&A sessions.
Learn more here!
|
|
Check out one of our partners!
|
|
|
|
|
