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SAN FRANCISCO, CA— Google announced the 20 recipients of its 2024 Google for Startups Founders Funds for Black and Latino entrepreneurs. This year marks the first cohort exclusively comprised of AI-focused startups, advancing Google’s commitments to inclusion in AI and to helping diverse founders access capital. Each founder will receive $150,000 in non-dilutive cash awards and $100,000 in Google Cloud credits to help grow their businesses. In addition to capital, the founders will also gain access to mental health resources and mentorship from Google experts in AI and sales. Five California-based founders, including one Los Angeles-based founder, are among the recipients, amounting to 1,250,000 invested in California startups.
The 2024 Black and Latino Founders Fund recipients are using AI to help solve important business and societal challenges—from using AI to prevent wildfires to diverting fast fashion from landfills to helping millions of community college learners more successfully transfer and acquire four-year degrees.
“AI can enable startups to build transformative products and solve complex challenges, but founders need access to capital to realize this potential,” said Maya Kulycky, Vice President of Strategy and Operations at Google Research. “Through the Google for Startups Founders Funds, we are proud to invest in promising Black and Latino founders who are leveraging AI technology to help address some of today’s most pressing issues. We are inspired by the groundbreaking work of these founders and their potential to shape the future of AI.”
EdVisorly (Los Angeles)
Founder: Manny Smith
About: EdVisorly is a platform empowering community college students and four-year university enrollment teams to connect to increase transfer admissions success and bachelor’s degree completion.
Bountiful (San Francisco)
Founder: Megan Nunes
About: Bountiful is an operating system for agriculture, modernizing how farmers, buyers, and sellers work smarter.
InOrbit (Mountain View)
Founder: Florian Pestoni
About: InOrbit is a leader in robot operations, helping robot developers and end users maximize the value of every robot through a data and AI platform.
Maverick (San Francisco)
Founder: Eitan Winer
About: Maverick enables ecommerce brands to send personalized videos to their customers at scale using AI.
Waterplan (San Francisco)
Founder: Matias Comercio
About: Waterplan is the water sustainability platform to measure, respond, and report water risk.
Google believes that racial equity is inextricably linked to economic opportunity. The company created the Founders Funds to help level the playing field for Black and Latino entrepreneurs who are consistently locked out of access to early capital. Today’s announcement builds on the program’s success to date—since 2020, Google has deployed more than $50M to Black and Latino founders around the world. These founders have raised over $590 million in follow-on funding.
To learn more, visit Google for Startups.
Supporting Quotes
EdVisorly (Los Angeles)
Quote: “Our team at EdVisorly is beyond grateful to be able to partner with Google as part of the Black and Latino Founders Fund to advance our vision for community college to university transfer across the United States” says Manny Smith, founder of EdVisorly. “Our partnership with Google has elevated EdVisorly’s capacity to deliver industry-leading AI, designed with and for our higher education institutional partners. I’ve had the opportunity to serve the country throughout my time as an officer in the Air Force, and I truly believe that the progress we are making by building bridges for talented and motivated students is foundational for the long term success of our nation.”
Bountiful (San Francisco)
Quote: “The Google for Startups Latino Founders Fund means that Google is giving us the resources to help us scale Bountiful’s Operating System for agriculture,” says Megan Nunes, founder of Bountiful. “The support will be used to grow our team and crop types we cover, allowing Bountiful to further our work in modernizing how farmers, buyers and sellers work smarter.”
InOrbit (Mountain View)
Quote: “We’re thrilled to have been selected for the 2024 Google for Startups Founders Fund cohort of AI-focused companies,” says InOrbit CEO and co-founder Florian Pestoni. “This program underscores Google’s commitment to helping startups at the cutting-edge of AI. The support will be instrumental in advancing our mission as a catalyst for the adoption of smart robots at scale across industries. With this funding, we’re excited to continue our work shaping the future of robotics and AI, empowering people and organizations to reach new heights.”
Maverick (San Francisco)
Quote: “The Google for Startups Latino Founders Fund is an excellent catalyzer to leverage one of the best networks of expert advice and alumni that will allow us to advance our AI-driven innovation,” says Founder Eitan Winer. “This will enable us to further drive the value we are already adding our customers around the assessment and management of water-related risks at a global scale.”
Waterplan (San Francisco)
Quote: “The Latino Founders Fund is an amazing opportunity to connect with likeminded founders and tap into the incredibly valuable resources and support provided by the Google for Startups team,” says Matias Comercio, co-founder and CPO of Waterplan. “The various forms of support will be used to continue building out the Maverick platform so we can reach more customers and deliver even more value to them.”
ABOUT GOOGLE FOR STARTUPS
Google for Startups works to level the playing field for startup founders and communities to succeed by bringing the best of Google’s products, connections, and best practices to startups. Paired with a deep commitment to create diverse startup communities, many of our offerings are designed specifically to provide underrepresented founders with access to resources and opportunities. We support startups everywhere to build something better. Because when startups succeed, we all succeed.
