Five Winners Will Be Selected to Receive
$10K Each and Participate in the Project Entrepreneur Accelerator
Program Hosted at Rent the Runway
Free Educational Summits Kick Off this Fall
in Chicago, with Keynote Speaker Carley Roney, Co-Founder of The
Knot/XO Group, Followed by Events in San Francisco and New York
City
Rent the Runway Foundation and UBS today announced the expansion
of Project Entrepreneur, increasing the number of winning companies
in the Accelerator from three to five. Project Entrepreneur is a
philanthropic educational program and venture competition designed
to increase the pipeline of women building high-growth companies.
Online submissions for the 2017 venture competition are now open at
projectentrepreneur.org.
“We are so excited to continue working with UBS in providing
women with the tools they need to create high-growth companies, and
see their visions through,” said Jennifer Hyman, CEO and Co-Founder
of Rent the Runway. “Past participants in our accelerator continue
to inspire us with their incredible progress, including closing
rounds of funding. We are eager to provide the next class of
talented female founders with the tools and support they need to
scale, and to see the disruption their companies bring to various
different industries.”
Entering its third year, Project Entrepreneur will provide
additional enhancements for the five winners, as well as expand
resources and startup services for participants and alumni in
acknowledgement of the program's growth. Since its inception, the
program has trained more than 1,200 aspiring entrepreneurs
representing 131 U.S. cities, and maintained 50% ethnic diversity
across its applicant pool and event attendees. The impact has also
been seen in the funding raised by participants, with the 2016
finalists reporting $9 million raised in seed and pre-seed
funding.
“The caliber of companies we're seeing through Project
Entrepreneur further validates what we've always believed—that
there is an incredible population of talented female founders in
cities and towns across the country,” said Lori Feinsilver, UBS
Head of Community Affairs & Corporate Responsibility, Americas.
“Being able to reach these women and provide them with access to
resources and support that will help fuel their growth gives us
confidence that we can indeed level the playing field.”
Project Entrepreneur's annual venture competition is open to
female founders who are seeking to build high-growth businesses.
Applicants are early-stage companies that are in the prototype or
beta stages, have their first paying customers, or are generating
revenue. The top 200 applicants will be invited to attend the
Project Entrepreneur Intensive in New York City on April 13-14,
2018, a free two-day event comprised of in-depth workshops, expert
speakers and a pitch competition. The five winning founders will
each receive a $10,000 award, a spot in the five-week accelerator
program at Rent the Runway’s New York office and mentorship and
engagement with UBS executives, entrepreneurs and investors.
In addition to the venture competition, Project Entrepreneur
will offer free educational summits where participants will hear
from Rent the Runway Co-Founders, Jennifer Hyman and Jenny Fleiss,
UBS Americas Head of Community Affairs, Lori Feinsilver, past PE
finalists, and attend workshops led by successful startups and
investors including Refinery29, Coffee Meets Bagel, Levo League,
Forerunner Ventures and Cowboy Ventures, among others. Details on
the summits are available at projectentrepreneur.org.
Summits are scheduled for:
- Chicago: Friday, October 6, 2017 at
1871
- San Francisco: Wednesday, October 18,
2017 at Galvanize
- New York City: Friday, November 17,
2017 at The New York Stock Exchange
Last year’s winning companies included: New York-based LOLI
Beauty, the first BIY (Blend It Yourself) clean and green beauty
brand; Scottsdale-based The TouchPoint Solution, a neuroscience
wearable that alleviates stress by altering the body’s stress
response in as little as 30 seconds; and San Francisco-based Lace
& Liberty, merging direct-to-consumer convenience with luxury
bespoke bridalwear. Two additional New York-based companies were
hosted by The Knot/XO Group Co-Founder Carley Roney and designer
Rebecca Minkoff: Repeat Roses, a sustainable floral waste removal
business that gives back to people and planet, and Reboundwear,
athleisure wear with a purpose, respectively.
“Project Entrepreneur is like being in the room for five weeks
with unlimited access to precisely the smartest, most relevant
people you need to know for your company’s success,” said Tina
Hedges, CEO and Founder of LOLI Beauty Inc. “The program connected
me to experts and leaders across a diversity of fields--there was
no limit to the resources we could tap into then, and even now post
the accelerator. All of this helped position me for success in
closing my first round.”
“Since the accelerator this past summer, The TouchPoint Solution
has seen a 200% percent growth with high projections for the Fall
and Winter,” said Vicki Mayo, CEO and Co-Founder of The TouchPoint
Solution. "The hands-on sessions, covering everything from app
development, customer acquisition, to staffing, directly
contributed to our growth."
"I learned so much from all of the people we met that have such
wide-ranging expertise, and from the investor office hours and
informative off-sites at incredible companies," said Danielle Wen,
CEO and Founder of Lace & Liberty. "I am so excited to be a
part of this growing ecosystem. I firmly believe that female
entrepreneurs thrive and grow in supporting one another and want to
do all I can to give back to this community."
UBS will also launch a Female Founders (#ff) social media
campaign in celebration of women entrepreneurs. The campaign will
offer insights from past Project Entrepreneur Accelerator
participants in weekly video conversations with UBS leaders across
its social media platforms and on the dedicated UBS Female Founders
website, starting on September 15.
ABOUT PROJECT ENTREPRENEUR:
Rent the Runway Foundation and UBS joined forces in September of
2015 to launch Project Entrepreneur, a program the two
organizations designed to address the fact that while women are
starting more businesses than ever before, only a small fraction —
three percent — generate $500K or more in annual revenue1; women
also count for less than 10% of founders at high-growth firms2. In
addition to the venture competition, accelerator program and
two-day intensive, Project Entrepreneur also includes multi-city
educational events, robust digital resources including #theTools
podcast, and an online hub with education modules, feature
articles, blog posts and inspirational stories from entrepreneurs.
The initiative is informed by its Community Advisors: Black
Founders; HBCU Innovation, Commercialization and Entrepreneurship
Initiative; Latino Startup Alliance and Venture for America. Cooley
is the pro bono legal partner of Project Entrepreneur. Creative
Artists Agency (CAA), and its philanthropic arm, helped to bring
Project Entrepreneur to life. Advisory Council members can be found
at: http://projectentrepreneur.org/about.
Follow Project Entrepreneur on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter,
and with the hashtag #PEVC17.
About Rent the Runway:
Rent the Runway is revolutionizing fashion by allowing millions
of women to rent designer apparel and accessories. The company
focuses on convenience and a top-notch customer experience on all
of its platforms, including online, mobile and retail locations in
Chicago, New York City, Washington, D.C., San Francisco and Los
Angeles. With styles from hundreds of top designers, RTR serves as
a powerful marketing channel for the fashion industry, introducing
a new generation of women to brands that they had limited access to
before. Co-founded in 2009 by Harvard Business School graduates,
Rent the Runway has raised over $190 million in venture capital and
has nearly 8 million members across the U.S.
About UBS Wealth Management Americas
Wealth Management Americas is one of the leading wealth managers
in the Americas in terms of financial advisor productivity and
invested assets. Its business includes UBS’s domestic US and
Canadian wealth management businesses, as well as international
business booked in the US. It provides a fully integrated set of
wealth management solutions designed to address the needs of
ultra-high net worth and high net worth clients.
About UBS
UBS is committed to providing private, institutional and
corporate clients worldwide, as well as retail clients in
Switzerland, with superior financial advice and solutions while
generating attractive and sustainable returns for shareholders. Its
strategy centers on its Wealth Management and Wealth Management
Americas businesses and its leading universal bank in Switzerland,
complemented by its Global Asset Management business and its
Investment Bank. These businesses share three key characteristics:
they benefit from a strong competitive position in their targeted
markets, are capital-efficient, and offer a superior structural
growth and profitability outlook. UBS's strategy builds on the
strengths of all of its businesses and focuses its efforts on areas
in which it excels, while seeking to capitalize on the compelling
growth prospects in the businesses and regions in which it
operates. Capital strength is the foundation of its success.
______________________________ 1 According to the 2016 State of
Women-Owned Businesses Report 2 According to November 2014 Kauffman
Foundation Report, Sources of Economic Hope: Women Entrepreneurship
View source
version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170914006320/en/
For UBS Wealth Management AmericasMaya Dillon,
+1-212-713-3130maya.dillon@ubs.com
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