Collab

Collab is a growing organization that aims to provide entrepreneurs with impactful, rigorous business support using a compassionate, fundamentally heart-centered approach so that they can build good businesses, create economic power, and shape their communities for themselves and their families. We prioritize serving people of color and women — particularly Black and Latinx entrepreneurs — who face persistent and significant barriers because of structural racism and sexism.

Collab is committed to building not only entrepreneurs’ individual power and agency, but also collective power among entrepreneurs. At this juncture, critical growth goals for our programming are (1) increasing the number of entrepreneurs we serve, (2) improving our current flagship programs and (3) developing additional programs to organize our graduates into a coalition that can advocate collectively for systemic change. 

Collab was founded in 2017. In addition to hosting regular public events and 1-on-1 Office Hours, our core program is the Collab Accelerator. This is a 12-week, cohort-based program supporting early-stage ventures. As a part of all of our programming, we provide childcare, transportation, and interpretation services to ensure all ventures can be successful while working with us. The 85 ventures that have graduated from our Accelerator have collectively raised over $1,757,357 in follow-on funding through investment, loans, and grants, generated over $4,092,822 in revenue, and added or continued to support 178 full time, part time, part time consultant jobs. 

Over the years, Collab has formed formal partnerships with the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven and their Mission Investments Company, CitySeed, The New Haven Free Public Library, the New Haven Innovation Collaborative, CTNext, Guilford Savings Bank, Co-Capital Investors, the Economic Development Corporation of Greater New Haven, and many more.