© 2024 Peoria Public Radio
A joint service of Bradley University and Illinois State University
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Peoria business accelerator helps startups find their sea legs

From left to right: John and Caroline LaHood of ColorForge, Brandon Jones and Andrew Farrar of Focused AIM, and gBETA Distillery Labs director Nathan Domenighini.
Tim Shelley
/
WCBU
From left to right: John and Caroline LaHood of ColorForge, Brandon Jones and Andrew Farrar of Focused AIM, and gBETA Distillery Labs director Nathan Domenighini.

Getting a nascent company off the ground isn't easy. Just ask Caroline LaHood.

"Startup life is tough. It's very overwhelming. You're kind of trying to cover so many different bases," she said.

Caroline and John LaHood are the minds behind ColorForge, a custom cosmetics company more than eight years in the making.

It's one of five companies tapped for the current gBETA Distillery Labs business accelerator cohort. It's an intensive seven-week boot camp providing companies with the coaching and networking opportunities they'll need to build success. Nate Domenighini is the program's director.

"Each company's at a different stage. For example, we have one company that's actually in the midst of of seeking warm introductions to venture capital at this point. So for that team, they're right into making their pitches and looking to raise capital," he said. "For other teams, it's putting them in a position to develop that pitch."

Brandon Jones and Andrew Farrar of the agricultural drone company Focused AIM are a lot newer to startup life than ColorForge.

"We were kind of at a napkin stage before we started the program," said Jones. "They've quickly turned us into a stage that's well past that, through different networking opportunities, lots of mentorship and opening our eyes to a lot of questions that we might not have thought of."

Domenighini said gBETA's role is to help companies where they're at and put them in a position to grow faster to scale.

"Because of gBETA, we're able to have those conversations with people, where normally we might not be able to because they might not understand who we are, what we're trying to accomplish," said Farrar.

"All of the mentors and people that we've met have been really invaluable," said John LaHood. "Just even getting our pitch and our idea out in front of so many people, and so many mentors that can give us feedback and really help us along in this process, has been great."

The cohort wraps up this month. In September, the five companies will participate in an annual Showcase Event to pitch their concepts.

Tim is the News Director at WCBU Peoria Public Radio.