Level Up Ventures is proud to partner with amazing founders on their startup journey. In a venture capital landscape that often overlooks Black and Latino entrepreneurs, we're working hard to rewrite the narrative by investing capital as well as invaluable resources, networks, and guidance. 🤝💰 Hear directly from some of our incredible portfolio company founders as they share the impact of partnering with Hearst Level Up Ventures. 💼💡 We are actively investing in high growth, pre-seed and seed tech startups led by Black/Latino entrepreneurs. Please review our investment criteria to see if you are a good fit and submit your startup today! https://lnkd.in/e7QXd3pP Courtney Caldwell, MBA Dr. Tye Caldwell, DPB. ShearShare, Inc. Derrick L. Johnson Encounter AI Constanza Gomez Agustina Mir Sortile Osvaldo Montelongo Tornu Prynce Bob Lee III ConnectCare LLC Morgan Hewett Kyle Pierce Options MD Natalia Micheletti Tim Hylton Pryze App #VentureWithPurpose #EmpoweringEntrepreneurs #SuccessStories
Level Up Ventures
Venture Capital and Private Equity Principals
Leveling the Field for Black and Latino Entrepreneurs
About us
Level Up Ventures invests in tech-enabled, early-stage startups led by Black and Latino founders. We couple financial investment with a deep bench of support from across the Hearst organization. If you're a Black or Latino founder raising your pre-seed or seed round, we'd love to hear from you. Visit our website to submit your startup for consideration.
- Website
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https://www.levelupventures.com/
External link for Level Up Ventures
- Industry
- Venture Capital and Private Equity Principals
- Company size
- 2-10 employees
- Headquarters
- New York City
- Type
- Privately Held
Locations
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Primary
New York City, US
Employees at Level Up Ventures
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Shashi Srikantan
Head of Level Up Ventures @Hearst
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Alen Lin
Equity and Debt Capital Markets, TMT Industries, cross-functional experience across strategy, product operations, marketing and finance. | Level Up…
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Freyja Balmer
Vice President of Product Management @ Hearst Newspapers | Level Up Ventures Scout | Leadership, Strategy, Product Development
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Gary Stewart
Venture Partner at Hearst's Level Up Ventures (avg. $300k checks) | 2x VC-Backed Founder with an Exit | Former MD at Techstars NYC | Inaugural…
Updates
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Calling all Latina and Latino entrepreneurs! Take your business to the next level with LBAN's programs at Stanford. These 9-week hybrid programs provide mentorship, capital matchmaking, and courses from top Stanford professors! ➡️ LBAN’s Business Scaling Program at Stanford Cohort 18 Transformative educational program for Latino business owners to catalyze the scaling of their companies. ➡️ LBAN’s Startup Accelerator at Stanford Cohort 2 Accelerator empowering startups to establish crucial business principles, accelerating growth and traction. After graduating, you will join a mutually supportive ecosystem of over 1,200 Latino entrepreneurs who understand the unique challenges of growing a business as a Latino entrepreneur. Plus, after completing the program, you'll receive a certificate from Stanford GSB Executive Education. Don't wait any longer; apply today! https://lnkd.in/gwPtqyFh #LBANstrong @LBANstrong
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Congratulations to Constanza Gomez, Cofounder & CEO of Sortile 🎉
Today I got to do something different! I was invited to Nasdaq for the 20th anniversary of Google's IPO. It was great to share the moment with the Google team as well as content creators, startups, community leaders, and many others. Sortile recently became part of Google's Latino Founders Fund and we are grateful for their continued support. Congratulations on your anniversary Google and thank you Danny Navarro for the invite!
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🚀 It's time to VOTE for next year's SXSW Panels! We’ve proposed a panel for next year’s South by Southwest Conference titled "MARGINAL EYES: Data-Driven Lenses on Diverse Founders". This panel will dive into the challenges and opportunities in identifying and supporting venture-backed companies led by marginalized founders. With insights from Allen T. Lamb of Kuiper Capital and Shashi Srikantan of Level Up Ventures, we aim to spark a meaningful discussion on this crucial topic. 🌟 Help us bring this important conversation to SXSW by voting for our proposal using this link! https://lnkd.in/eWi9sijb #SXSW #Panelpicker
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Congratulations to Level Up Ventures' latest Portfolio Company, BoxedUp, Inc., for closing on a $2.8M raise! BoxedUp is a cloud-based e-commerce platform for B2B rental companies and referred to as "the Shopify for rentals" by CEO Donald Boone. “Our platform helps legacy rental industries like portable storage, dumpster, and welding automate their manual processes to further scale their organizations, using e-commerce as a wedge to scale in the $300 billion B2B equipment rental industry,” Be sure to check out the rest of the article and share with your networks. https://lnkd.in/evpMrjTr
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📢 Check out our Level Up Ventures Startup Spotlight Series, ✨ where we feature interviews with the inspiring entrepreneurs behind our portfolio companies. Encounter AI has developed an advanced artificial intelligence ordering assistant, "Mai," specifically designed for restaurant drive-thrus. This cutting-edge technology significantly enhances accuracy, service, and speed, ensuring a seamless and efficient experience for both customers and restaurants. With impressive metrics, Encounter AI boasts a remarkable 93% pure AI accuracy in drive-thru orders with sub 400 millisecond latency response time, surpassing the current industry standard by 66.7%. Their relentless dedication to innovation has earned them a feature in Popular Mechanics Magazine, underscoring the transformative potential of their technology. By the way, Encounter AI is currently fundraising and we're happy to make any intros or provide additional info upon request. 🤝 About Level Up Ventures: Level Up Ventures is a Hearst-backed investment vehicle launched in 2021 with a mission to help close the racial wealth gap. We invest in early-stage, tech-enabled startups led by Black and Latino founders, providing them with capital and the support of our Level Up Scout network, comprising professionals from across Hearst’s global businesses. Level Up Ventures is currently investing—please visit our website to check out our investment criteria and recommend a great startup today! 📺 Watch the full interview and be sure to share with your networks! #fastfoodrestaurants #drivethrutechnology #AIordering #ArtificialIntelligence
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🎉 A huge congratulations to Shashi Srikantan of Level Up Ventures, for being included in the Forum Ventures’ List of the top NYC Founder-First Investors. Incredibly grateful to our Portfolio Company founders for the recognition. Level Up is honored to be a part of your entrepreneurial journey. "Level Up Ventures has truly walked by our side since investing in our round. They have opened up business opportunity doors for us and are always finding ways to help us without even asking." Congratulations to all 25 investors nominated on the list and special shout outs to Lisa Burton O'Toole, PhD, Richard Odior, Jeremy Kagan, and Rachel ten Brink
I am thrilled to be included in Forum Ventures' inaugural Founder First Award list! 🎉 While it's an honor to be recognized by peers, it's especially meaningful to be nominated by the talented founders we have the privilege of supporting as they build amazing companies. Their recognition makes this particularly special, so thank you. Congratulations to our friends Jeremy Kagan of Textbook Ventures, Rachel ten Brink of Red Bike Capital, finalists Richard Odior of Zeal Capital Partners and Lisa Burton O'Toole, PhD of HearstLab, and all the other founder-first investors nominated. Check out the full list of 25 founder-first investors here: https://lnkd.in/gwRVC5Ff #FounderFirst #VentureCapital #NYC #StartupCommunity #ForumVentures
List of the top NYC Founder-First Investors
forumvc.com
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Congratulations to Constanza Gomez and Agustina Mir, Cofounders of Sortile, for being selected as one of the 20 Startups for the Google for Startups Black and Latino Founders Fund!
Sortile has been selected as one of the 20 startups for the Google for Startups Black and Latino Founders Fund! This incredible opportunity underscores our commitment to innovation and excellence in the tech industry. As a company founded by two Latina women we know the funding stats better than most. About 2% of VC funds go to women and another 2% to Latino founders, the estimate by McKinsey of funding for Latino women: 0.1%. It is these sobering statistics that make programs like the Black and Latino Founders Fund so important. The world needs our ideas, our passions, our companies ESPECIALLY when we find ourselves in the cusp of a technology wave with AI. Thank you Google for Startups for recognizing our potential and supporting our vision. Sortile has been working on increasing textile landfill diversion rates for close to three years now and we are excited to have you along for the ride! We are sure this program will catalyze our efforts, accelerate our growth and enhance our tech, allowing our impact to spread even further. #GoogleForStartups #FundLatinoFounders Constanza Gomez Agustina Mir Shashi Srikantan Level Up Ventures REFASHIOND Ventures: The Industrial Transformation Fund Lisa Morales-Hellebo Brian Laung Aoaeh, CFA Lang Entrepreneurship Center Start-Up Chile
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📢 Welcome to the Level Up Ventures Startup Spotlight Series, ✨ where we feature interviews with the inspiring entrepreneurs behind our portfolio companies. First up is Options MD, a groundbreaking telehealth platform that's changing the game for individuals battling severe and treatment-resistant mental illnesses. Their AI-powered tool, Thalamus MD, developed by psychiatric researchers at Harvard, UCSF, and Carnegie Mellon Universities, offers personalized treatment recommendations and diagnostic suggestions. We're excited about the difference Options MD is making with an impressive 88% rebooking rate and a 27% patient remission rate which is 2x higher than industry average for treatment-resistant depression. By the way, Options MD is currently fundraising and we're happy to make any intros or provide additional info upon request. 🤝 About Level Up Ventures: Level Up Ventures is a Hearst-backed investment vehicle launched in 2021 with a mission to help close the racial wealth gap. We invest in early-stage, tech-enabled startups led by Black and Latino founders, providing them with capital and the support of our Level Up Scout network, comprising professionals from across Hearst’s global businesses. Level Up Ventures is currently investing—please visit our website to check out our investment criteria and recommend a great startup today! 📺 Watch the full interview and be sure to share with your networks! #InvestInTheFuture #BlackAndLatinoFounders #Telehealth Morgan Hewett Kyle Pierce
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📢 Welcome to the Level Up Ventures Startup Spotlight Series, ✨ where we feature interviews with the inspiring entrepreneurs behind our portfolio companies. First up is Options MD, a groundbreaking telehealth platform that's changing the game for individuals battling severe and treatment-resistant mental illnesses. Their AI-powered tool, Thalamus MD, developed by psychiatric researchers at Harvard, UCSF, and Carnegie Mellon Universities, offers personalized treatment recommendations and diagnostic suggestions. We're excited about the difference Options MD is making with an impressive 88% rebooking rate and a 27% patient remission rate which is 2x higher than industry average for treatment-resistant depression. By the way, Options MD is currently fundraising and we're happy to make any intros or provide additional info upon request. 🤝 About Level Up Ventures: Level Up Ventures is a Hearst-backed investment vehicle launched in 2021 with a mission to help close the racial wealth gap. We invest in early-stage, tech-enabled startups led by Black and Latino founders, providing them with capital and the support of our Level Up Scout network, comprising professionals from across Hearst’s global businesses. Level Up Ventures is currently investing—please visit our website to check out our investment criteria and recommend a great startup today! 📺 Watch the full interview and be sure to share with your networks! #InvestInTheFuture #BlackAndLatinoFounders #Telehealth https://lnkd.in/e6TRVyjf
Options MD — A Level Up Ventures Investment
https://vimeo.com/