These five minority-founded startups have investment offerings worth checking out on Republic’s crowdfunding platform.
Bowr
Bowr aims to transform the furnishing industry into an accessible, affordable and sustainable market through its products.
The Company: Bowr is a minority-owned company with the goal to transform the complex and fragmented furnishing industry into a democratic, reasonably priced and easily accessible marketplace. This company wants to be the place where customers can buy high-quality crafted furniture at fair prices and fully customize it to their space and needs.
The company's ultimate aim is to offer authentic, totally customizable furniture to people's homes while also empowering independent designers and artisans and cutting out intermediaries.
Investment Highlights: The company's system is designed to enrich whoever sells the product and to create a digitally native, design-driven, on-trend marketplace that delivers bespoke furniture to every style and budget, reimagining how everyone views, experiences and participates in the global furnishing industry.
Bowr offers clients on-trend, inexpensive and personalized items with over 500 products, with its lists growing. In addition, the startup's designs are created from the best quality sustainable raw materials sourced from all around the world and can be delivered at cost to the customer's doorstep.
Independent manufacturers can use the company's digital platform to receive and handle orders, offer automated manufacturing and updates to clients, access on-demand delivery and logistics aspects and connect with worldwide raw material suppliers and customers. A minimum investment of $150 is required to join the crowdfunding campaign.
Brik + Click
Brik + Click intends to revolutionize the e-commerce industry by providing turnkey services such as online, retail, virtual reality (VR), last-mile delivery and cryptocurrency through a cost-effective, easy-to-use and straightforward solution.
The Company: Brik + Click debuted in October 2020 intending to integrate technology and connect the offline and online retail worlds with its unique checkout-enabled VR platform.
After excluding the supermarket component, Brik + Click has estimated an $860 billion prospective market for independent retail. The company's store serves as a testbed for identifying real-world issues and implementing technological solutions for other retailers.
Brik + Click's product is a customized SaaS solution that allows businesses to select which features are appropriate for their consumer base. Its long-term goal is to use its stores to test and deploy tech and commerce solutions for independent merchants.
Investment Highlights: Brik + Click's turnkey retail spaces, online marketplace and checkout-enabled VR store allow Direct to Consumer (DTC) sales that are seamlessly linked with the latest commerce trends — all while employing retail storefronts to serve as e-commerce services.
The company's scalable omni-channel model sits at the intersection of popular brands, retail, creators and fulfillment. In addition, its multi-brand stores include best-in-class retail design and are computerized to mimic online purchasing.
Brik + Click has partnered with Westfield (Unibail-Westfield-Radamco), which owns retail real estate in 14 countries throughout North America, Europe and Australia. Over 70% of the brands the company works with are female- or minority-founded. The minimum investment required to join the startup's campaign is $260.
Quantum Music
Quantum Music aims to be an online marketplace for the over $30 billion Asian influencer economy by pairing Asian influencers with global brands.
The Company: Quantum Music is a gig-based platform that seeks to bridge the gap between Asian influencers and worldwide businesses. The platform assists brands in partnering with the best group of affiliated influencers, structuring focused marketing programs and tracking and analyzing the results.
The startup's solution helps affiliated influencers get stronger online momentum and generate more cash by fulfilling promotion activities. As a result, brands can get the most out of their digital marketing initiatives when working with Quantum Music while influencers can get excellent prospects to make more money.
Investment Highlights: Quantum Music is attempting a completely different market strategy by lowering the entrance barriers, mainly rewarding users with cumulative income and increasing market efficiency.
The business concept of the platform is based on a self-reinforcing flywheel that boasts high velocity. The Quantum Music marketplace has already attracted over 300 influencers, with the network rapidly growing.
So far, the company has partnered with a mix of new and established brands to advertise products and services, gaining 40 million or more total followers by Q2 2021 and achieveing a 9 times annual growth rate. A $100 minimum investment is required to buy shares in the company.
nēdl
Through an app with best-in-class capabilities for broadcasters, podcasters, influencers and new creators, nēdl aspires to democratize information and microphone access.
The Company: nēdl is an app that allows users to explore and create audio in real-time. Any user can start their own live call-in radio program in seconds with the click of a button, which transcribes, amplifies and monetizes their words as they speak.
The startup's AI-powered search engine locates live audio (user-generated material) based on the actual words uttered in real-time. In addition, nēdl users can share their own web URL so that anyone with access to the internet can watch their live broadcast and subscribe to receive live text alerts — even if they haven't downloaded the app.
nēdl has been expanding audio accessibility since 2017 by transcribing live audio in real time, aspiring to become the chosen destination to make the best live audio worldwide.
Investment Highlights: Even though the startup's new beta app was only released in December 2020 for iOS and April 2021 for Android, nēdl has already gotten a lot of exposure from prominent publications like Forbes and Entrepreneur Magazine.
Furthermore, the company was awarded a patent in the United States in November 2020 for real-time keyword searches of live audio feeds. nēdl's patent was also approved in Korea in May 2021, making the startup the only firm in the world that can find live content on TV, radio, live audio streaming and social media by listening to what people are saying in real-time. A minimum investment of $150 is required to fund the campaign.
Yumwoof
Yumwoof aspires to be a leader in dog food innovation by providing artisanal dog food made with the kind of natural ingredients that humans could eat and focusing on achieving a balance of health and convenience.
The Company: Yumwoof Natural Pet Food's primary goal is to help dogs live longer and healthier lives. The startup's products have all-natural ingredients, are easy to use for pet owners and have a flavor that dogs enjoy.
The brand is now developing a blockchain-based platform to swiftly grow its dog food product line by carrying out feeding trials. Yumwoof plans to make this software available to the industry for free.
Investment Highlights: The company is committed to developing unique products in high-growth categories of the pet food industry by using clean ingredients with functional benefits and dishes designed by a top-rated NYC chef and veterinary nutritionists.
The company's first product that launched in November 2020 to outstanding success, Perfect Kibble, is a soft-dry dog food made with natural ingredients and a one-year shelf life with no artificial preservatives. Yumwoof's newest product, Perfect Dog Food Mix, is a mix that allows pet owners to make low-carb dog food using whole food items.
Finally, according to IRP Commerce statistics, the company's high conversion rate of 5.1% is higher than the industry average of 3%. The minimum investment required to fund the campaign is $100.
Photo by Daria Nepriakhina on Unsplash
