I Am Closing The Funding Gap (IACTFG)

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  Are you ready to help close the opportunity gap for women and underrepresented minority founders?

## Inspiration We know that race and gender play significant roles in determining access to capital. Our team at Monica Motivates is committed to connecting entrepreneurs with funding opportunities. Founded in 2017 by Monica McCoy, Monica Motivates, LLC is focused on helping women and underrepresented founders secure funding to scale their businesses. We are inspired to change the data, one founder at a time.

Women-owned businesses and underrepresented founders suffered greatly during the pandemic. Data from Pitchbook shows that companies founded solely by women garnered only 2.4% of the total capital invested in venture-backed startups in the US in 2021. Black and Latinx women founders received 0.43% of VC investment in 2020. And 22.3% of black entrepreneurs report that a lack of access to capital negatively impacted profitability.

## What it does I am Closing the Funding Gap (IACTFG) is a cloud-based tool that connects founders and funders and provides a portfolio of projects and opportunities that need support. Founders complete a profile of their business, their project, and their capital needs.

Supporters who want to help close the funding gap can view and discuss our portfolio of vetted projects and campaigns and donate via the IACTFG cloud-based tool. All donations go directly to support one of the campaigns or projects listed in our portfolio of Current Campaigns.

## How we built it We built our web-based application on Microsoft Cloud Azure. We were able to utilize the resources on the Microsoft cloud to deploy the WordPress application, developed a user-friendly funding and resource platform, and applied SSL using Azure's TLS/SSL bindings to complete a safe environment to promote our funding solution.

## Challenges we ran into Aligning the desktop view and the mobile view of the solution was very challenging throughout the development process.

## Accomplishments that we're proud of This hackathon project is a giant step for us to make IACTFG a cloud-based solution leveraging the Microsoft cloud. We can now reach founders and funders from around the globe. We are proud to take the project to this new level. The cloud-based platform will allow us to grow and scale our solution. Founders and funders who visit our site can uncover funding opportunities. They can also learn more about learning and development training offered by Monica Motivates, dive deeper in the data that fuels our work, and join our community to stay in touch with our team.

## What we learned We continue to learn and grow as we progress along our project journey. The data that supports our work can be alarming and discouraging, but that is why we are motivated to do this work. We have learned to ask the right questions when profiling or vetting a business or project that is looking for funding support. We have also learned about non-dilutive funding and how funding must be categorized from a tax accounting perspective.

## What's next for I Am Closing The Funding Gap (IACTFG) The next step is to expand our portfolio of Campaigns and Projects looking for funding. We will extend an invitation to a select group of founders in our network who are already vetted and have projects that qualify. We will also grow our list of Supporters looking to provide funding. As we experience continued success with matching founders to funders, we will showcase our success stories and attract additional founders and funders to our platform.

Built With

• azure
• microsoft
• office-365
• tls/ssl
• wordpress