SHIFT Ventures and Conscious Venture Lab have launched their fourth accelerator cohort, “A Challenge for More Resilient Cities,” with six purpose-driven companies and a new investor: the Stephen and Renee Bisciotti Foundation.

The six companies were chosen from more than 100 applicants for the accelerator/equity-investment program, the theme of which is engaging entrepreneurs to solve problems of urban resilience. The selected companies are using technology and innovation to tackle problems around education, ex-offender opportunities, financial literacy and health-care issues that challenge Baltimore and other urban areas.

The Bisciotti Foundation joins Plank Industries, which signed on as an investor and partner for the Lab last year.

The Foundation was “specifically drawn to the concept of spreading economic opportunity and mission-driven entrepreneurship all around Baltimore,” said Jason Bisciotti, who manages investments for the Bisciotti Foundation. “This dovetails with our desire to make Baltimore a more inclusive and prosperous city for all our citizens.”

SHIFT Ventures and Conscious Venture Lab worked with organizations like Baltimore Young Professionals, Impact Hub and the Emerging Technology Center to encourage applications from minority and female founders. The makeup of the cohort reflects that outreach, with five of the six companies run by founders of color, four of them women. In addition, two of the companies are relocating from Atlanta to Baltimore in order to join the program.

“This cohort represents our commitment to funding minority and female founders,” said Jeff Cherry, Founder, CEO and Managing General Partner of SHIFT Ventures and the Conscious Venture Lab. “We’ve planted a stake in the ground in the Innovation Village in West Baltimore to spread prosperity to under-served communities, and invest in companies that solve big societal problems. We’re thrilled that the Bisciotti Foundation has agreed to join us in the mission and we’re looking forward to working with their team to continue Baltimore’s path to becoming a world-class city of purpose-driven entrepreneurs.”

Participants go through an intensive four-month curriculum in “building companies that matter,” Cherry said. Each company gets an equity investment of $100,000, and access to world-class mentorship from the likes of Tom Gardner, CEO of The Motley Fool and a group of professors from the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia that includes Conscious Venture Lab Academic Director and expert on stakeholder management, Ed Freeman.

For this cohort, applicants were asked to identify ways in which their companies could address chronic urban stress factors by using big data, connected devices, Blockchain, open systems or other advances in technology or business methods.

“These entrepreneurs hold the sustainable, scalable solutions and technology to tackle tough socioeconomic issues. We help them enhance their models, find the right investors, and share their solutions for Baltimore and beyond,” said Joe Mechlinski, Founder of SHIFT Ventures.

The six members of CVL4 are:

CoAuthor: An iPad-based platform designed to coach parents, teachers and other caregivers in using early-childhood education science and techniques, as a guide to learning and development of socio-emotional and critical-thinking skills.

Core Staffing Cooperative: A unique take on temporary staffing that uses dignified work, occupational-focused education, and shared company ownership to achieve the entrepreneurial and educational career goals of its members, while delivering affordable talent to its clients and local businesses.

Optikal Care: An affordable subscription box that delivers contact care bundles to the user’s doorstep, with monthly payment options to help everyone afford quality eye care. Optikal Care seeks to reduce high upfront costs and other factors that can cause poor maintenance and delayed replacement of lenses, increasing the risk of injuries and disease.

Ortus Academy: A social-impact company using competitive game-playing to stimulate interest in financial literacy and to track progress, as reflected by changes in the players’ choices in later lessons. The goal is to prepare under-served middle- and high-school students for their financial future by building healthy relationships and habits around money.

R3Score Technologies: This web-based tool makes it easier for banking professionals to assess the riskiness and financial capacity of customers with criminal records – a market of about 70 million people who might otherwise be deemed ineligible for mainstream financial products. R3Score collects and integrates data about the whole person to use the benefit of context in helping returning citizens transform their lives.

TruDiary:An interactive health app that uses Blockchain technology to allow women to create a smart health diary. Saving them time and improving diagnoses through a truer, more complete snapshot of relevant patient data. TruDiary gives the doctor a storyboard of relevant data and allows for peer-to-peer mentoring via the patient’s private Blockchain.

These companies will bring the total number of Conscious Venture Lab graduates to 28. Earlier cohorts have included the rescued-produce distribution company Hungry Harvest, which later obtained $100,000 in financing on ABC’s “Shark Tank,” and Shea Radiance, a cosmetics company that now has more than 100 retail outlets throughout the mid-Atlantic.

About SHIFT Ventures and the Conscious Venture Lab:

The Conscious Venture Lab - started in 2013 with the support of the Howard County Economic Development Authority - is on a mission is to uncover entrepreneurial talent wherever it may be found, build mission-driven companies and make cities more just, joyous, equitable, sustainable and prosperous for all. In 2017, Conscious Venture Lab’s parent company, The Porter Group joined forces with Baltimore-based SHIFT to form SHIFT Ventures in order to help entrepreneurs achieve increased levels of growth and sustainability. Together, the companies can offer innovators and entrepreneurs new corporate partners, investors, and world-class consulting expertise.