CELA OFFICE HOURS
Accelerating Access
Accelerators have put some of our generation’s most influential companies on the map. These programs increase the chances for a founder to successfully fundraise — as well as to support founders as they build their ventures.
But they also provide founders with advocates and mentors — the biggest need for founders aside from financial capital.
So we asked ourselves: what if we could make accelerators more accessible, helping entrepreneurs of all kinds to expand their networks in meaningful ways?
Cela is partnering with the Morgan Stanley Multicultural Innovation Lab to connect founders of all kinds to capital, mentorship, and communities of support.
Morgan Stanley’s Multicultural Innovation Lab (the “Lab”) is an accelerator program that targets companies with women or multicultural founders that have the potential to develop innovative technology solutions that promote a more inclusive and sustainable future.
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Our goal:
Make a more accessible tech ecosystem by bringing the world’s top accelerators together.
How it works:
Step 1:
Step 2:
Selected founders will be matched with 4 accelerator programs from the Cela network for a 1:1 meeting with each accelerator
Step 3:
In the 1:1 meeting, founders will get insights from each mentor, as well as get further connections to: investment, hiring, sales, product, legal, accounting, and more!
WHEN/WHERE
Tuesday, September 27th, 5PM EST | VIRTUAL!
10 founders will be chosen to be hand-matched with investors and accelerators specific to their company. The structure has resulted in real investments, as well as hires, partnerships, and other exponential outcomes.
MENTORS
Featured
Past Mentors
Matching Founders with Top Accelerators
Accelerators have put some of our generation’s most influential companies on the map. These programs support founders as they build their products and brands, and increase their chances of successful fundraising. But they also provide them with advocates and mentors—which diverse founders tell us is their biggest need aside from financial capital.
So we asked ourselves: what if we could make accelerators more accessible, helping diverse innovators in tech expand their networks in meaningful ways?
Our goal:
To activate the accelerator community as a way to lay the groundwork for a more diverse, inclusive, and accessible tech ecosystem in New York City and beyond.
Fong Wa is an experienced operator turned venture capital investor.
She is the Head of Venture Capital at Akuna Capital. Akuna Capital is an innovative trading firm with a strong focus on cutting-edge technology, data driven decisions and automation. Their core competency is providing liquidity as an options market-maker – meaning we provide competitive quotes that we are willing to both buy and sell.
To do this successfully, Akuna designs and implements low latency technologies, trading strategies and mathematical models.
Fong Wa is also a champion for diverse and underserved founders, and strives to make the venture capital world a more accessible space in supporting both entrepreneurs and her fellow investors.