Springboard

500 Global, founded in 2010 and based in Mountain View, California, is a venture capital firm and startup accelerator that specializes in seed investments in technology-driven startups across various sectors, including biotech, fintech, e-commerce, and digital healthcare. The firm focuses on early-stage companies with significant growth potential, typically preferring to invest between $0.05 million and $1 million for a 5 to 10 percent equity stake. It targets businesses with at least $100,000 in monthly revenue and values between CAD2 million and CAD10 million. Operating globally, 500 Global has invested in over 2,800 companies across more than 80 countries, with a significant emphasis on supporting minority founders. The firm also offers a four-month accelerator program, providing mentorship, funding, and connections to a vibrant network of experienced professionals. With a team of over 190 members, 500 Global is committed to fostering entrepreneurial ecosystems and driving long-term economic growth through innovation and technology.

5minutes empowers creative professionals to build websites optimized for revenue in 5 minutes or less. 5minutes is a design led, all-in-one platform for creative professionals that helps them to get a full-fledged web presence: all sites are optimized to look good on mobile devices and to be indexed and ranked by Google for relevant keywords in a few hours (the average time to get indexed is two weeks). 5minutes also assists users to sell digital and physical products (stock photos, wedding albums, prints, etc all through the same platform), to identify who to follow on Twitter & Facebook in order to grow their social graph and to come up with and schedule daily updates on Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn in order to get more leads. We got more than 4,000 people signed up for a paid subscription on our landing page. In the last few years, the three cofounders worked together with professionals and companies like Universal, Incase, or Lexus to help them do the same thing that 5minutes helps with: look good online and sell stuff.