On the Fly

We are about to hit the halfway mark for SustainableCincy 2022. We have five incredible founders and a really interesting variety of ventures that address some aspect of our environmental challenges. Cleanup Collective is designing, building, and deploying a fully equipped cart to make neighborhood litter cleanup efforts easy, fun, and rewarding. Intersect Agricultures uses nature’s most efficient composter to make animal feed. Spoiler alert, it involves bugs. Sprout connects people to a community of plant enthusiasts. We have two companies that are helping companies design and manage their ESG strategy. AIM and Uplift 5P.

If you’re new to the term, ESG stands for Environment, Social, Governance. It refers to the commitment companies make to the planet, and the ethical and equitable treatment of its workforce, suppliers, and customers. ESG plans and performance against goals is an increasingly important factor influencing investor decisions and brand building so it’s an important but challenging process for companies to manage. AIM helps small and mid-size companies create their strategy, Uplift 5P is a platform for large companies to manage ESG goals across their supply chain.

Which brings us to Demo Day.

Please use the registration button and mark your calendar for November 16, 4:30 PM at our partner MadTree Brewing in Oakley. Our companies will pitch for an audience of investors, potential partners, and friends. Our keynote speaker will be Cincinnati City Councilmember Meeka Owens. Councilmember Meeka D. Owens is currently the Chair of the Climate, Environment, and Infrastructure Committee, one of the first local government committees in the nation to prioritize climate change. She's a key member in making the Green Cincinnati plan a priority.

Please feel free to bring a friend. At Flywheel, we like to share the love.

It’s not too early to be planning for our Spring accelerator, Elevate Equity. This time of year we like to be starting conversations with founders who are developing ventures that address systemic inequities. For example, one of our alumni is supporting Black professional women with peer mentoring and networking. Another is making grade school STEM education fun with hands-on activities delivered at camps and parties. Another is working his way through the regulatory process in order to be able to offer crowd sourced investments for Black owned businesses.

We are also looking for partners who want to join us in supporting this work. If you or your company would like to be a program sponsor, please reach out to me at Flywheel.

I hope to see you at StartupCincy Week. Flywheel is hosting a panel ON Tuesday October 11th at 1:00 PM. You’ll year how Flywheel alumni have positioned their social impact companies for investors who want to both invest well and do good.