Meet The 2024 Google for Startups Founders Funds Recipients

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Published by Stephen Oluwadara at June 27, 2024

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The Google for Startups Founders Funds provide cash awards — without giving up equity in return — and hands-on support to help underrepresented founders build thriving businesses.

Launched in June 2020, Google for Startups’ Black Founders Fund is part of Google’s $175 million racial equity commitment. With over $50 million, the Fund has empowered Black-led startups across Africa, Brazil, Europe, and the US, fueling funding, fostering communities, and driving generational change.

The more than 570 Black and Latino founders who have received the fund have gone on to raise more than $590 million in follow-on funding to continue scaling their businesses and AI solutions.

Beyond the $150K non-dilutive cash awards, the Black Founders Fund equips founders with $100K worth of ongoing Google mentorship, Cloud credits, and product support, empowering their startup journey. For this cohort, they’ll have access to Google’s experts in AI, sales, and more to help build and scale their companies and innovate responsibly with AI.

Google has announced the 2024 Black and Latino-led startup recipients, coinciding with the fund’s fifth anniversary.

Commenting on the startups, Maya Kulycky, Research VP of Strategy and Operations Google, said, “These companies are pushing the boundaries of what’s achievable with AI,” from developing innovative solutions to prevent wildfires (Improving Aviation) to diverting millions of tons of fast fashion from landfills (Sortile), and to helping millions of helping millions of community college learners successfully transfer and acquire four-year degrees (EdVisorly).”

Here’s a list of the 2024 Google for Startups Founders Funds recipients:

Akeptus

Akeptus provides a smart home energy management system that helps homeowners optimize their energy usage and reduce costs. The platform addresses the energy cost challenge faced by 42% of small businesses and 27% of U.S. households by transforming utility costs from a fixed expense into a strategic asset. It was founded by Nana Wilberforce, Ph.D in 2019 and based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States.

Beta Financial Services

Beta Financial Services is a provider of financial services intended to offer small and midsize businesses fair access to capital. They remove bias in financial services through tools like BetaScore, a proprietary credit model designed to help SMBs obtain loans. It was founded by Seke Ballard in 2015 and is based in Chicago, Illinois, United States.

Bountiful

Bountiful provides data-driven yield forecasts and transparent analytics for farmers, food, and agricultural industry professionals. The company helps farmers and food industry professionals with forecasts and critical insights for specialty crops. It was founded in 2015 by Megan Nunes and Tomas Svitek.

Cambio AI

Cambio was built as a cross-functional platform for the largest real estate owners and occupiers. The platform provides software that decarbonizes their facilities and helps commercial landlords and corporate tenants reach their net zero goals. It was founded in 2021 by Leia de Guzman and Stephanie Grayson.

EdVisorly

EdVisorly is a mobile application that enables community college students to explore universities, connect with admissions, plan their transfer, and apply to universities. The service allows universities to increase their capacity to attract, engage, qualify, and enroll prospective transfer students. EdVisorly was founded in 2019 by Manny Smith and Alyson Isaacs.

Elis

Elis helps product and marketing teams efficiently collect rich customer insights via interviews. The platform uses AI to conduct user interviews so that product teams can clarify customer needs, uncover product pain points, and validate new features — fast. It was founded by Kene Anoliefo in 2021.

HacWare

HacWare is a security awareness and training company for MSPs and SMBs that combats phishing attacks by empowering users with advanced cybersecurity education. It helps businesses combat phishing attacks through experiential learning. Tiffany Ricks founded HacWare in February 2020.

Hire Henry

Hire Henry develops industrial robotic mowers for large greenspaces. They build artificial intelligence-powered robots for industrial applications. It was founded by George Holmes, PhD in 2018.

Hue

Hue, founded by Fahad Khawaja in 2020, helps brands source and integrate authentic customer testimonials on their marketing channels. The SaaS platform also sources and integrates authentic video reviews on e-commerce brands’ websites and marketing channels.

Improving Aviation

Improving Aviation was founded in 2020 by Rocio Frej Vitalle to support the Federal Government with R&D, systems engineering, and modeling and simulation efforts to integrate emerging technologies. The platform provides AI and emerging vehicle technologies to enhance public safety, aviation, and wildfire management operations.

InOrbit

InOrbit helps developers and operators virtually manage and scale their robotics fleets. The secure, scalable, and cloud-based robot management platform enables robotics companies and their customers to develop, deploy, and operate smart robots on a global scale. Florian Pestoni is co-founder and CEO of InOrbit, founded in 2017.

JustAir

The JustAir platform provides vital health and environmental insights through hyper-local community air quality monitoring networks. The company equips community leaders with these insights. Darren Riley founded JustAir in May 2021.

Maverick

Maverick’s AI-generated video platform uses Google Cloud AI to help e-commerce brands boost revenue by creating personalized experiences for each customer throughout the user journey. It was founded by Eitan Winer and Debarshi Chaudhuri in 2021.

Pagedip

Pagedip is a no-code content publishing app that allows users to create beautifully efficient, powerfully effective, and demonstrably measurable documents that work better for their teams and customers. It was founded by Scott Hawkins, Sherisse Hawkins, Alex Milewski, and Ashmita Dutta.

Raincoat

Raincoat develops highly scalable embedded climate insurance products and the automated infrastructure that powers them. They work with insurers, governments, and financial institutions to unlock new markets and enable climate resilience at scale. San Juan-based Raincoat was founded by Jonathan González in June 2019.

Sensagrate

Sensagrate assists with making informed decisions by measuring risks and impacts of transportation, climate, and economic changes to provide recommendations using AI to optimize traffic planning and safety to ensure equitable transportation access. It was founded by Darryl Keeton in 2018.

Sortile

Sortile is a NYC-based Start-up that aims to divert textiles from landfills through its textile management system. It provides an integral solution for identifying, sorting, and recommending the best outlet for different textiles. Sortile was founded by Constanza Gomez in August 2021.

TackleAI

TackleAI is a data discovery company that uses proprietary neural networks, machine learning, and computer vision to automatically discover, extract, and redact data points in never-before-seen documents. It was founded by Sergio Suarez Jr. in 2018.

Trustible

Trustible is a software platform that enables legal/compliance and AI/ML teams to scale their AI Governance programs to help build trust, manage risk, and comply with regulations. Gerald Iturrioz and Andrew Gamino-Cheong founded Trustible, which was incorporated in January 2023.

Waterplan

Waterplan is a Climate Tech startup providing a B2B Enterprise SaaS platform for companies to assess, address, report, and monitor water risks. Using climate data models and water data analytics allows companies to gain insights into the physical, regulatory, and social water security risks facing operations, business growth, brand reputation, and supply chains worldwide. The company was founded in 2020 by Jose Ignacio Galindo.