Our mission is to provide Black/Brown woman-identifying founders with access to community, capital, and capacity building in order to meet business milestones that lead to economic advancement through entrepreneurship.

Founded in 2016 by Serial Entrepreneur and Computer Scientist Shelly Bell, The Black Girl Ventures Foundation (BGV) addresses the unique challenges Black/Brown women face in accessing social and financial capital to grow their businesses. The BGV Style pitch competition is the largest pitch competition globally for Black/Brown women founders. It uniquely combines the premise of Shark Tank and Kickstarter by activating community participation in donating to support women-owned businesses directly. We have funded 130 women of color, held over 30 BGV Pitch Programs across 12 cities and served over 200 participants. BGV pitch participants are collectively generating over $10M in revenue and supporting 3,000 jobs. BGV is now the largest ecosystem builder for Black/Brown women founders on the East Coast.