Newswise — Twenty-four high-potential women entrepreneurs have been selected to participate in Babson College’s Women Innovating Now (WIN) Lab® Boston—a unique, eight-month accelerator specifically designed to support women in their entrepreneurial pursuits. Each year, WIN Lab® Boston selects leading women entrepreneurs from Babson, the City of Boston’s “Women Entrepreneurs Boston (WEBOS)” initiative, and beyond.
WIN Lab aims to disrupt the entrepreneurial environment that women must often adhere to, and instead presents a challenging but supportive experience that catalyzes long-term success by fostering creativity and collaboration, increasing visibility, providing hands-on mentorship, identifying branding and marketing tactics, and leveraging funding opportunities and competitions.
The program launched in Boston in 2013, and last year expanded to Miami—a top-ranked U.S. city for startup activity. To date, 105 WIN Lab participants have completed the program and raised over $5.5 million in funding.
“We are always impressed with the caliber of women-led businesses who apply for the program, and this year is no different,” said Babson’s WIN Lab Boston Director Ashley Lucas. “We are seeing a wide range of talent come in, from MassChallenge finalists to Commonwealth Kitchen food entrepreneurs and education technology change-makers—all ready to create waves across the many industries in which they participate. We are also excited to welcome leading local executive mentors, including Lizanne Kindler, CEO of Talbots and Annbeth Eschbach, President and CEO of exhale. The entire network of incoming entrepreneurs and mentors are eager to get started on what is sure to be a standout year for the WIN Lab.”
“I am honored to be a mentor for Babson College’s Women Innovating Now (WIN) Lab and I look forward to sharing my knowledge and life lessons with the next generation of women entrepreneurs,” said Lizanne Kindler, CEO of Talbots. “I believe strongly in the importance of supporting female leaders and sharing real-life experiences that cannot be taught in a classroom or found in a text book. This is an incredible opportunity and I cannot wait to connect with the women of Babson’s WIN Lab!”
“After launching, growing and recapitalizing a national wellbeing brand and business, I understand the significance of support networks and mentors in every stage of the entrepreneurial journey”, said Annbeth Eschbach, Founder and CEO of exhale. “Working one-on-one with the next generation of female founders as an EIR for Babson College’s WIN Lab will be thrilling and rewarding.”
Meet the 2017-2018 Boston WINners
Aisling Organic Cosmetics Krysta Lewis, Founder and CEO
Aisling Organic Cosmetics is a revolutionary line of high-performance and all natural, organic makeup.
Ataxa Tech Solutions Veselina Stanislavova Arangelova, Founder and CEO ATAXA is a case management software that will help practitioners handle and organize case-related documents in a shared database, and make them easily accessible from anywhere to authorized users.
COEO Fitness Scarlet Batchelor MBA’06, Co-Founder and CEO
COEO is an app networking together the triad of boutique fitness studios, instructors, and clients with a focus on instructors as the powerful backbone to the ecosystem.
Diversity Dashboard Kari Heistad, Founder and CEO
Diversity Dashboard is an online project management software for corporate diversity professionals to help them track their activity, measure their results, and analyze their ROI.
EDU-CRED Holly Fox, MBA ’06, Founder
EDU-CRED is an edtech company supporting licensed professionals, offering the ability to effortlessly track, retain, and deliver requisite documentation to the licensing body to meet Continuing Education obligations and maintain professional certification.
Epiic Solutions Blake Sims, Founder and CEO
Epiic Solutions creates unique learning experiences for students, educators, and schools to help them explore entrepreneurship, innovation, and design thinking.
Fresh Zen Ruby Chan, Founder and CEO
Fresh Zen foods is an artisan sauce company that makes handcrafted, all-natural sauces from old Chinese farmhouse recipes. The company produces out of Boston’s Commonwealth Kitchen and also runs cooking classes at the Boston Public Market.
FriendlyU Cathy Copeland Titus, Co-Founder and CEO, and Lynda Russo, CFO
FriendlyU is an online network for college admissions, student ambassadors, and on-campus clubs to connect with interested high school students during their college search.
Global Joy Joia Spinelli, MBA’19, Founder
Global Joy is a membership platform that matches and allocates practitioners, coaches, and specialists to your health needs and supports you on your health journey.
Joulez Stephanie Rowe, Founder and CEO
Joulez is a for-profit consumer product startup focused on empowering girls aged 8-12 through STEM with the skills, vocabulary, and courage needed to create the technical innovations of tomorrow.
Junipo LLC Van Adraneda MBA’18, Founder
Junipo makes and sells casual shoes with cinnamon insoles that are comfortable and keep the feet smelling great.
Logwood Company, LLC Ivy Camelia Lawson, CEO
Logwood Company sells specialty raw honey and honey derived natural set products.
Project 99 Yulkendy Valdez ‘17, Co-Founder and Managing Partner
Project 99 enables diverse millennial talent to be at the forefront of cultural change within leading organizations. We help companies run internal, cohort-based leadership programs that equip their high-potential millennials to harness their collective energy and talent to tackle racial equity in the workplace. Through this work, we will achieve our vision of 30% racial and ethnic diverse leadership across the corporate sector by 2030.
Rent-A-Sister Liz O’Donnell, Founder
Rent A Sister provides support services for family caregivers. Through a team of experienced, compassionate family ambassadors, Rent A Sister offers the strategic, tactical and emotional support families need to manage eldercare.
Sweet Teez Bakery Teresa Thompson Maynard, Founder
Sweet Teez Bakery specializes in custom, nut-free cakes, cupcakes, pies, brownies, and pastries with unique flavors and creative designs.
The Optimist Co. Devin Donaldson, Founder and CEO
A line of truly natural cleaning and laundry products with ingredients our customers can easily read and recognize as safe.
thisHaiti Blonde Beauchamp, Founder
Specialty food manufacturer focused on marketing Haitian cuisine through authentic condiments, snacks, spices, and other specialty food products made with only natural and organic ingredients.
Valiance Health & Disability Carolyn Langer MBA ’17, Founder and CEO
Every time a child is born with a disability, the family is left to navigate a maze of highly complex and fragmented services. Valiance Health & Disability would serve as a “one-stop shopping” experience, assisting families through every step of the special needs journey.
Veggie Table Foods Dale Roseman, Founder and CEO
Providing healthy twists on your favorite foods, Veggie Table Foods provides plant based cauliflower pizza crusts, bagels, and snacks for the busy, health-conscious, and gluten-intolerant consumer.
Watch Rx Jayanthi Narasimhan, Founder and CEO
WatchRx offers a smartwatch with phone and GPS capabilities to help seniors take their medications on time and live independently with dignity.
Whole U. Shannon O’Brien, Founder
Whole U. is a career and life coach platform that supports job seekers to pursue their life's work.
X.O.I. Beverage Linh Tran, Co-Founder and CEO
X.O.I. provides healthy hydration for both the skin and the body, powered by a Vietnamese traditional skin healing herb called Gac fruit. Through our sustainable and ethical supply chain, we are able to support and empower marginalized Vietnamese farmers who grow and harvest Gac fruit with us.
One early-stage venture has chosen to remain anonymous at this time.
About the Women Innovating Now (WIN) Lab at Babson Created by the Center for Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership (CWEL) at Babson College, Women Innovating Now (WIN) Lab provides women entrepreneurs in both Boston and Miami with an inspiring community and a rigorous, experiential process that catalyzes innovative thinking and enables them to successfully launch or transform businesses.
Now in its fifth year, WIN Lab has been designated as one of the top two specialty programs for Excellence in Entrepreneurship Education by the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship®; earned BostInno’s designation as one of Boston’s “50 on Fire” innovators and visionaries; and was honored by the prestigious Rosoff Awards for diversity.
About Babson College
Babson College is the educator, convener, and thought leader of Entrepreneurship of All Kinds®. The top-ranked college for entrepreneurship education, Babson is a dynamic living and learning laboratory where students, faculty, and staff work together to address the real-world problems of business and society. We prepare the entrepreneurial leaders our world needs most: those with strong functional knowledge and the skills and vision to navigate change, accommodate ambiguity, surmount complexity, and motivate teams in a common purpose to make a difference in the world, and have an impact on organizations of all sizes and types. As we have for nearly a half-century, Babson continues to advance Entrepreneurial Thought & Action® as the most positive force on the planet for generating sustainable economic and social value.