Meet the 2024 cohort of VHNYC
Visible Hands — a venture capital firm that funds and empowers underrepresented founders launching high-growth startups — announces its second cohort of 15 entrepreneurs for VHNYC, a hybrid, nine-week Fellowship for NYC-based founders. The Fellowship program, created in partnership with the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) is targeted at early-stage entrepreneurs who are working on scalable tech-enabled solutions and/or venture-backed ideas reshaping leading industries.
Visible Hands and the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYC EDC) have officially launched their second cohort for VHNYC, a now nine-week hybrid Founder Fellowship for 15 underrepresented founders building high-growth, tech, and tech-enabled businesses based in NYC. This group of 15 diverse founders from the five NYC boroughs will work over the next few months to take their startups to the next level in a hybrid-model program.
The founders who were accepted into VHNYC will get the guidance and support needed from the Visible Hands and NYCEDC teams to hit their next major startup milestone. The NYCEDC has granted each of the cohort’s entrepreneurs with $10K in non-dilutive funding to financially empower them to work on their startups, and Visible Hands will be providing company-building services over the course of the fellowship, as well as the opportunity for additional venture capital funding from the firm after successful completion of the program.
The fellowship was created to help underrepresented tech founders across NYC gain more traction in the early stages of their startup, with NYCEDC and Visible Hands hoping to be a strong foundation of support to fill the funding gap for overlooked entrepreneurs. The partners hope VHNYC will reflect the same amount of inspiring opportunity for the cohort as the city of New York does for entrepreneurship as a whole.
Many talented individuals applied for VHNYC’s first cohort, and Visible Hands is excited to partner with the NYC EDC to create a New York-specific program for 15 new founders.
“Witnessing last year’s Founder Fellowship’s success ignited our excitement to partner with NYCEDC again,” said Justin Kang, Visible Hands Co-Founder and General Partner. “This program is a powerful example of how inclusion fuels innovation, empowering underrepresented entrepreneurs to build thriving businesses. New York City, a global hub for innovation and diverse populations, provides the perfect backdrop for this impactful initiative.”
VHNYC is an extension of the Visible Hands mission to support overlooked talent, in partnership with NYCEDC’s efforts to create more inclusion in the startup ecosystem.
Here are the amazing 15 founders and startups who make up the inaugural VHNYC cohort:
Amir Sigari, Monocle
Monocle provides AI Operations Agents bridging the gap between inventory and marketing for eCommerce merchants.
Anthony Lewis, Emerge
Emerge is a consolidated vertical Dental software solution that combines practice management, revenue cycle management and patient communication into one intuitive, cloud-based software solution.
Deepak Shrivastava, Sunrise AI
Sunrise AI is on a mission to revolutionize credit assessments. They provide AI-powered credit checks that go beyond traditional methods. Their technology leverages machine learning to analyze extensive user-permissioned open banking and alternative data, resulting in more accurate, equitable, and inclusive credit scores.
Emilie Rodriguez, The Bridge Directory
The Bridge Directory is a platform for perinatal health professionals of color and a community for the families we serve. We are on a mission to heal the disparities in healthcare from within by training institutions and providers, redefining expectations in care, and closing the access gap. We are creating a nationwide referral network made up of professionals of color offering high-quality services that integrate the needs of the whole family from family planning, to pregnancy, postpartum, and beyond, starting with New York City & State and expanding to the DC area in 2024. We intend to raise the standard of maternal health from the baseline of alive to thriving through our integrative model of care.
