Capital Factory is committed to creating and supporting diversity in the tech community. We recently named Mellie Price as our Director of Diversity & Inclusion, and she has been working with many community stakeholders to organize and collaborate with the many different organizations focused on this mission in Austin.

“We jump at every opportunity to host events at Capital Factory that bring diverse entrepreneurs of all faiths, races, genders, and sexual orientations into our community,” said Mellie Price, Director of Diversity & Inclusion. “We recognize and celebrate diverse role models for up and coming entrepreneurs to look up to.” August is Women’s Month at Capital Factory where Capital Factory is featuring as many female speakers as possible and it all culminates at the first annual Women in Tech Summit on August 23rd. Additionally, we’ve hosted events such as Diversity Epic Office Hours, the Google for Entrepreneurs and CODE2040 Happy Hour, Lesbians Who Tech, Austin Hispanic Hackers, and many more.

That’s why we’re so excited to announce, in partnership with DivInc, our $100,000 Diversity & Inclusion Investment Challenge. This particular challenge will focus on startups with a founder or executive leadership teams who are normally underfunded and underrepresented in the tech space including people of color, women, and those in the LGBTQ+ community.

“I meet black, Latino and female entrepreneurs every day who have great ideas and incredible passion but lack access to essential resources to build scalable, high growth businesses. We want to help create an authentic culture of inclusive entrepreneurship within the Austin tech ecosystem”, said Preston James II, CEO and Executive Director of DivInc., an accelerator that partners with Capital Factory which focuses on diverse founders.

So what will it take to win? We are looking for first-time entrepreneurs that have at least one founder on the executive team and have built a compelling Minimum Viable Product – but most of all we’re looking for entrepreneurs with a scrappy and tenacious attitude.

$100,000 isn’t all of the money you’ll ever need, but it’s enough for a determined team to focus full-time on building a minimum viable product and finding product market fit for about a year. We give you free rent, free server hosting, a lot of other free stuff to make that $100,000 last as long as possible.

The winner will receive:

• $100,000 cash investment on a SAFE or Convertible Note. We will make you detailed offer before you decide to participate in the final round of the competition.
• Special access to an A-List of Austin’s top entrepreneurs who add value far beyond the money you received
• 1 year of membership in Capital Factory’s startup accelerator
• 1 year of unlimited co-working at Capital Factory
• Hundreds of thousands of dollars in free hosting credits from Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, IBM Softlayer, Microsoft & Rackspace, plus many other cloud services you use
• Access to the Capital Factory Mentor network
• Company formation if needed by startup law firm Kastner, Huggins, Reddien & Gravelle (KHRG)

Think you’ve got a shot? Apply now on AngelList to be one of 5 teams selected to pitch on Funding Day on September 29th. You could walk away with $100,000!

Interested in hearing more? We’ll be hosting info sessions at Capital Factory in Austin on September 7th. As well as at The DEC in Dallas on September 6th.

Questions? Reach out to accelerator@capitalfactory.com