VANCOUVER, BC, March 10, 2021 /CNW/ - In collaboration with
Disruption Ventures, The Scotiabank Women Initiative™ is launching
the BC RAISE & RISE pitch competition – a virtual pitch
competition and conference that presents women entrepreneurs with
the opportunity to win a cash investment of $25,000 and more.
RAISE & RISE Pitch Competition
Until March 31, 2021, *eligible
entrepreneurs can submit their applications to
the RAISE & RISE pitch competition
online.
A panel of judges will evaluate the applications and select six
to move forward for the final round. The top six finalists will be
contacted on April 9, 2021.
RAISE & RISE Conference
The conference portion of RAISE & RISE will be led by
top industry leaders and offer meaningful discussion to women
entrepreneurs about how to "raise" capital and "rise" as successful
entrepreneurs.
"Women face many challenges when it comes to channeling and
raising funding for their businesses," says Sloane Muldoon, Senior Vice President, Retail
Performance, Scotiabank and Advisory Board Member and Chair of The
Scotiabank Women Initiative. "Together with Disruption Ventures,
The Scotiabank Women Initiative is committed to raising awareness
of the gender gap that exists in Venture Capital and is helping to
provide equitable access to capital for women entrepreneurs
starting their own companies."
The virtual conference takes place on April 14 from 9 a.m. to
Noon PT and is free for anyone to attend. For more
information and to register, please visit the RAISE &
RISE webpage.
The pitch finale will be hosted virtually, by invitation-only on
April 15. Six finalists will compete
for the Grand Prize in front of the panel of expert judges,
including the following successful entrepreneurs and business
executives;
- Elaine Kunda, Founder &
Managing Partner, Disruption Ventures
- Stephen Gaskin, Senior Vice
President, BC & Yukon Region, Scotiabank
- Tracey McVicar, Partner, CAI
Capital Partners
The winner of the Grand Prize will also be announced on the
RAISE & RISE webpage on April 16, 2021.
The Grand Prize Winner will:
- Receive a cash investment from Disruption Ventures for a
minimum of $25,000 (CAD), subject to
standard terms and conditions;
- Enter the NITRO program powered by Blakes;
- Participate in a three-hour personal and corporate tax planning
workshop with BDO Tax Expert;
- Participate in a series of three (60 minute) one-on-one sales
effectiveness coaching sessions with Sonya
Meloff, Co-Founder, Sales Talent Agency;
- Be featured in a Scotiabank Perspectives article.
All six finalists will be awarded a Finalist Prize
Package consisting of:
- A series of three interactive workshops (75 minutes)
facilitated by The Scotiabank Women Initiative in partnership with
Scotiabank and Roynat Capital
- A 90-minute training session with Marc
Shewchun (Founder and head of Nitro Powered by Blakes)
- Three roundtable discussions (90 minutes each) from BDO on
topics of interest to startups such as SRED, Tax, and
Valuations
"Raising capital is one of the biggest challenges for
entrepreneurs generally, and particularly for women entrepreneurs,"
says Elaine Kunda, founder and
managing partner of Disruption Ventures. "It is our goal to provide
a platform that provides useful fundraising tactics as well as to
bring exposure to potential investors for the companies that
participate in our competition."
Submissions can be submitted directly here.
*For information on eligibility, please visit the RAISE &
RISE webpage.
About The Scotiabank Women Initiative The Scotiabank
Women Initiative is a comprehensive program to help advance
women-owned and women-led businesses
across Canada through three key pillars: Access to
Capital, Mentorship and Education. Since launching in December
2018, The Scotiabank Women Initiative has achieved several notable
milestones. In September 2019, the Bank
committed to deploy three billion dollars in
capital to women-led businesses in its first three years. The
program has engaged more than 3,000 women through our Boot
Camps and group mentorship sessions across Canada. We
formed The Scotiabank Women Initiative Advisory Board of
Scotiabank executives, who provide expertise to help women grow
their businesses through facilitated small group mentorship
sessions and we developed an online Knowledge Centre and
Digital Hub for self-directed learning. For more information on The
Scotiabank Women Initiative,
visit scotiabankwomeninitiative.com.
About Disruption Ventures Disruption Ventures is the
first private Canadian female-founded venture capital fund that
invests in businesses founded or managed by women. Recognizing that
women-led companies are underfunded, despite their ability to
perform and grow successful businesses, Disruption Ventures is
committed to being the starting point for the very best female
founders when early stage capital is required. For more
information, please visit www.disruption-ventures.com and connect
with us on Twitter @Elaine_Kunda and @DisruptionVC.
About Scotiabank
Scotiabank is a leading bank in the
Americas. Guided by our purpose: "for every future", we help our
customers, their families and their communities achieve success
through a broad range of advice, products and services, including
personal and commercial banking, wealth management and private
banking, corporate and investment banking, and capital markets.
With a team of approximately 90,000 employees and assets of
approximately $1.2 trillion (as at
January 31, 2021), Scotiabank trades
on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: BNS) and New York Stock
Exchange (NYSE: BNS). For more information, please visit
http://www.scotiabank.com and follow us on Twitter
@ScotiabankViews.
SOURCE Scotiabank