The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is once again finding an extraordinary way to celebrate Global Entrepreneurship Week. {Prisere LLC was selected for the GEW 50, the 50 most innovative start-ups in 2011, the year of our founding, by a panel of judges from the Kauffman Foundation.} Together with business accelerator The Refinery and the ride-sharing service Uber, the Kauffman Foundation announced a nationwide pitch competition for women-owned businesses that are ready to scale. Business owners were invited to submit their written applications and those advanced to the next round of the competition took a 15-minute Uber ride in selected cities to pitch their business to an investor while driving about town. The investor provides immediate feedback on the pitch.
Prisere LLC participated in this “Fueling the Growth” Competition and were fortunate enough to pitch to an investor who had led a Boston-based company in the Inc. 5,000 and happened to have expertise in our area of work. Prisere received very thoughtful, detailed feedback that will inform our work going forward. If the “Fueling the Growth” Competition comes to your town, be sure to apply and many thanks to Uber for offering this innovative program to accelerate small business growth.