gBETA Urban League Accelerator Program – United States

gBETA runs multiple times every year in cities across the United States. Up to five companies from a range of verticals are selected from a competitive applicant pool to participate in the free seven-week program. Participating companies receive:

• Individualized coaching and mentorship from the team of nationally ranked accelerator gener8tor on company growth and investor readiness
• Weekly “Lunch & Learns” and “Mentor Swarms”
• Investor and accelerator pitches
• $1M+ in deals and perks from vendors like IBM Cloud, Rackspace, Amazon, Paypal, Zendesk, Hubspot and Microsoft
• Ongoing post-program support and gener8tor community involvement and offerings

gBETA’s goal is that graduates will go on to participate in an investment accelerator or raise a seed round.

What’s the gBETA program schedule like?

• Team Meetings feature individualized coaching and mentorship from the gBETA team.
• Weekly Lunch & Learns featuring topics relevant to startups including understanding market size, choosing a revenue model, and setting financing goals and milestones. Lunches are open to the broader community.
• Mentor Swarms are speed-dating-style meetings with five mentors each week. Mentors include serial entrepreneurs, subject matter experts and investors.
• Investor Swarm is an opportunity for each company to pitch to 25+ angel investors, VCs and accelerators in their home market locally and nationally.
• Program Wrap-Up provides each cohort to celebrate their program completion with one another and program partners. Companies will have the opportunity to showcase their startups.

Eligibility Criteria 

• You’re based in Madison
  • Open to Madison businesses owned by Black entrepreneurs and other entrepreneurs of color from high tech startups to Main Street small businesses with a particular focus on entrepreneurs who are interested in becoming a part of the Urban League of Greater Madison’s Black Business Hub.
• You’re Committed
  • While they don’t expect you to be full-time on your business yet, programming is about a five-hour commitment each week, and they expect that you will be spending additional time working on your business each week outside of the program.
• You’re Ready to Grow
  • gBETA companies range from “I have an idea” to “I have significant revenue.” Although most gBETA companies are post-product, pre-scale, as long as you are ready to make use of coaching on customer growth and investor readiness, mentor meetings, and investor and accelerator pitches, they’re ready for you!

For more information, visit gener8tor.