Call for Submissions

The Lori Hermelin Bush Seed Fund supports ideas, business models or ventures that are scalable, innovative, and further advance women in entrepreneurship (ex: has women founders or co-founders, impacts women in society, health, etc.). The Fund provides seed funding ranging from $500-$10,000 based on defined needs and stage of the business venture. Funds are provided with the purpose of supporting companies in proving their concept, and where the money will have a significant impact on the company’s ability to progress.

Eligibility

1. The Lori Hermelin Bush Seed Fund is open to companies founded or led by a member of the Temple University Community. The designated team leader must be a Temple University degree candidate (undergraduate or graduate), alumni, faculty, or staff. Teams may include additional members without ties to Temple (students from other universities, etc), but the Temple University community member must serve as the team leader, be part of the founding team, and/or be a significant equity holder, if equity has been distributed.
2. Companies submitting to the Lori Hermelin Bush Seed Fund must be less than two years old as of June 1, 2021
3. Teams cannot have raised more than $10,000 from institutional funding (includes pitch competitions, angel investors, VCs, crowdfunding and/or accelerator/incubator programs).
4. Teams must have gross sales less than $25,000 by June 1, 2021.

Selected Finalists will pitch to our Judging Panel on July 22nd!

Submission Requirements

• Brief company description containing no more than 250 characters explaining your company, product, or service.
• Elevator Pitch: This is a one or two-sentence statement that describes your idea and how it creates value for a user or stakeholder, and why that user will purchase your offering instead of doing what they have always done or purchasing a competitor’s offering.
• Requested dollar amount and a detailed explanation of how the funds will be used (include projected milestones and dates)
• Investor Pitch deck
  • In the “Notes” section of each slide, please be sure to include the script for that slide.
  • Make sure you include all the information requested in the 2021 Lori Hermelin Bush Seed Fund Submission Rubric In the Shared resources folder above.

All submissions must be made through the StartupTree Platform.