Sponsors of the 2023 Rhode Island Business Competition
The Rhode Island Business Competition thanks the following who made it possible to award prizes in the 2023 Competition. We also thank our Growth Partners, who provide critical support to emerging local companies.
Pillars
Bryant University
Bryant University has a 144-year tradition of excellence in higher education. The depth and breadth of the academic programs in the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Business offer students the flexibility to explore courses that pique their individual interests. Bryant’s unique integration of the business and the liberal arts prepares students to apply their knowledge and skills upon graduation. Outstanding faculty, state-of-the-art facilities and technology, and a focus on the development of the individual transform and empower students. The goal is to help students to realize their personal best in life and their chosen professions.
Cox Business
Cox Business is proud to be a Pillar sponsor of the Rhode Island Business Plan Competition. Cox Business is a local provider of voice, data, video, and security solutions for businesses of all sizes. In addition to these services, we're especially excited to support the Rhode Island entrepreneurial community with our annual pitch competition, Get Started Rhode Island. For more information, please go to GetStartedRI.com, as well as our business resource site, CoxBlue.com
Everhope Foundation
Sponsor of the 2017 Competition and presenting sponsor of the May 16 Awards Ceremony.
Leaders
Envision Technology Advisors
Envision Technology Advisors has been providing business and technology consulting and implementation services to the New England market for more than a decade. With offices in the Providence and Greater Boston markets, Envision knows that technology solutions need to start with people - your people, our people, and the people your business serves. With specialties that include desktop and data center virtualization, cloud solutions, SQL infrastructure assessments and remediation, IT managed services, network and wireless consulting, website design and development, and more, Envision is proud to help clients make the most out of the technologies they use in their organization.
Hinckley Allen
Hinckley Allen is a full-service law firm with 150 lawyers and offices in Providence, Rhode Island; Boston, Massachusetts; Hartford, Connecticut; and Concord, New Hampshire. Since 1906, the firm has been providing expert legal counsel to corporations, organizations, and individuals, and has earned a reputation for legal excellence delivered with a personal touch. The firm provides legal services to individuals and businesses, including many of the region's publicly held corporations and emerging business. Hinckley, Allen & Snyder LLP's practice is organized into the following principal practice areas: construction, corporate and business, employee benefits, environmental, health, intellectual property, litigation, real estate, labor and employment, personal financial planning, securities, and technology.
KLR
KLR is one of New England's premier accounting and business consulting firms. With 160 team members and offices in Providence, Boston, Waltham, and Newport, KLR provides a wide range of services to both individuals and businesses. Ranked one of the largest firms in New England, KLR’s growth and commitment to client service is unparalleled in the industry. Communication, cost saving strategies, relationships, and excellence are the core of our commitment to our clients. KLR has been awarded three Practice Innovation Awards and named one of the Best Places to Work (four years in a row). Our award-winning firm helps ensure our ability to retain the most talented professionals to support your business.
Sprout Coworking
Sprout is a coworking community that offers a variety of flexible and dedicated work and meeting spaces to individuals and organizations. Members include entrepreneurs, freelancers, established businesses and new businesses. Any person or team that needs a work or meeting space can find one at Sprout. Membership benefits include a business mailing address and participation in a diverse and supportive community. Meeting facilities are available to anyone. Our location at 166 Valley Street, Providence, has many amenities including ample free parking. We also operate an art gallery and are part of Gallery Night Providence. Come for a tour!
Trail Blazers
Beacon Mutual Insurance Company
The Beacon Mutual Insurance Company is the premier writer of workers' compensation insurance in the State of Rhode Island. Chartered by the state in 1990, we are a mutual workers' compensation insurance carrier with over 12,000 policyholders and 60% of the workers' compensation market - serving both the competitive and residual markets. We are financially secure, with approximately $400 million in admitted assets and we return excess surplus to our policyholders in the form of lower premiums and/or dividends.
FM Global
FM Global, headquartered in Johnston, R.I., is a world leader in commercial property insurance and risk management. For 175 years, FM Global clients have relied on our unmatched expertise in creating comprehensive, global commercial and industrial property insurance and engineering-driven risk management solutions. Our policyholder/owners represent more than one out of every three Fortune 1000 companies, as well as leading international companies.
Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce
The Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce working with the Innovation Providence (IP) Committee distributed US Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration funding to support local economic opportunities like the RI Business Plan Competition, which focuses on growing the state’s Knowledge Economy. The Chamber is a membership organization that fosters the development of a positive and productive business climate. The IP Committee oversees strategy and investment surrounding the development of Rhode Island’s Knowledge Economy.
Pioneers
Bank Rhode Island
Bank Rhode Island is a full-service, FDIC-insured commercial bank based in Providence. The bank’s capital strength gives it the capacity to serve businesses of all sizes – from sole proprietorships to large corporations. Its local focus and consistent approach to business lending has made it the #1 SBA Lender in Rhode Island for the past two years. The bank operates 17 branches and over 60 ATM’s across the state.
Bristol County Savings Bank
Bristol County Savings Bank, founded in 1846, is a full-service financial institution offering commercial lending, personal and business banking, and mortgage services. The Bank’s Bristol Wealth Group, which enjoys an affiliation agreement with one of the leading brokerage firms in North America, Raymond James Financial Services (Raymond James), provides businesses, municipalities, non-profits and individuals with a wide range of investment solutions. In addition, the Bank also offers quality property and casualty insurance options for its customers through its majority-owned insurance partner, FBinsure. The Bank’s steady growth and expansion has resulted in $2 billion in assets and over 400 employees in southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The key words at Bristol County Savings Bank are: "Commitment, Stability, and Community," values that are combined with state-of-the-art technology to meet the needs of its customers. A dedicated local community bank for over 170 years, Bristol County Savings Bank is actively involved in giving back to all the communities it serves both through financial support and the volunteerism of its people.
Business Development Company
The Business Development Company is a non-bank lender, regulated by the state of Rhode Island, which provides gap and direct funding, in the form of debt or equity, to help promising but often undercapitalized companies in Rhode Island and nearby Connecticut and Massachusetts grow and expand employment. Since our founding in 1953, we have assisted hundreds of companies to become stronger competitors while helping to retain and create thousands of jobs in Rhode Island, as well as jobs in Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Delta Dental of Rhode Island
Delta Dental of Rhode Island is the state’s leading dental insurer, administering dental benefits for nearly 587,000 members. Headquartered in Providence, we remain a symbol of strength and stability in the local dental insurance arena. For more than 50 years, Delta Dental has provided affordable dental insurance to employers, individuals and families across the country. As the nation’s largest, most experienced dental benefits carrier, Delta Dental protects more than one-third of the estimated 166 million Americans with dental insurance, covering more than 59.5 million people in over 97,900 groups nationwide.
Dimeo Construction Company
Dimeo Construction Company is an industry leader in providing innovative planning and construction solutions to clients in the educational, institutional, healthcare, life sciences, commercial and corporate sectors throughout New England. Ranked by ENR among the Top 100 construction managers in the United States, Dimeo’s 225 professionals value strong team collaboration and working from a “Builder Mindset” in assuring our clients a successful project outcome.
Navigant Credit Union
Navigant Credit Union, Rhode Island's first credit union established in 1915, possesses a rich history of providing financial services to individuals and families throughout Rhode Island. At the end of its first year in operation in 1915, the Credit Union recorded assets of $22,000. Today, with more than one billion dollars in assets Navigant Credit Union is among the largest credit unions in Rhode Island and one of the strongest in the country and takes pride in offering all the same products and services as a "big" bank while maintaining a personal touch.
Peter George Public Speaking
For more than 15 years, Peter George has helped others develop into speakers who positively affect others. He has helped others learn how to craft and deliver presentations that engage, persuade, and inspire. As a public speaking coach and trainer, he specializes in helping executives, attorneys, and other professionals to be calm, confident, and credible every time they speak in public.
Slater Technology Fund
The Slater Technology Fund focuses on the support of entrepreneurs who have the vision, leadership and commitment to build substantial business enterprises, providing seed stage capital to companies committed to basing and building technology-based businesses in Rhode Island. Slater typically invests at the inception stage in the development of a new venture, often based upon ideas and technologies originating in academic institutions, government research laboratories or commercial enterprises located within the region. In most cases, investments are premised upon the possibility of raising substantial follow-on financing, be it from venture capital investors or from strategic partners, the rationale being that such external funding will accelerate the creation of a significant number of high value, high wage jobs over the intermediate to longer-term.
Washington Trust Company
The Washington Trust Company is a subsidiary of Washington Trust Bancorp, Inc., a $3.1 billion corporation headquartered in Westerly, Rhode Island. Founded in 1800, Washington Trust is the oldest community bank in the nation and is the largest independent bank headquartered in Rhode Island. A state-chartered bank, Washington Trust offers a full range of financial services, including business banking, personal banking, and wealth management and trust services through its offices located in Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts. The Corporation's common stock trades on The NASDAQ Global Select® Stock Market under the symbol WASH.
Innovators
BankNewport
Founded in 1819 and currently holding $1.1 billion in assets, BankNewport is an FDIC-insured savings bank and is a subsidiary of the Mutual Holding Company, OceanPoint Financial Partners, MHC. Along with its financial partner, OceanPoint Insurance Agency, Inc., BankNewport is proud to serve the financial needs of customers from banking and insurance offices located throughout southeastern New England. BankNewport is headquartered in Middletown, Rhode Island, and has 12 branch locations throughout Newport County, Bristol County, East Greenwich, North Kingstown and Narragansett, Rhode Island.
Bank of America
Bank of America is one of the world’s leading financial institutions, serving individual consumers, small and middle-market businesses and large corporations with a full range of banking, investing, asset management and other financial and risk management products and services. The company provides unmatched convenience in the United States, serving approximately 67 million consumer and small business clients with approximately 4,000 retail financial centers, approximately 16,000 ATMs and award-winning digital banking with approximately 55 million verified digital users. Bank of America is a global leader in wealth management, corporate and investment banking and trading across a broad range of asset classes, serving corporations, governments, institutions and individuals around the world. Bank of America offers industry-leading support to approximately 3 million small business households through a suite of innovative, easy-to-use online products and services. The company serves clients through operations across the United States, its territories and approximately 35 countries. Bank of America Corporation stock (NYSE: BAC) is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
Blount Fine Foods
Blount Fine Foods is a family-owned and operated manufacturer, marketer and developer of fresh prepared foods. Blount’s products include restaurant-quality, single-serve grab-n-go fresh soups and entrées at retail, as well as entrées, side dishes, and a full line of mac & cheese for retail hot bars and restaurants. Many Blount products are also available with specialty certifications that include organic, gluten-free, and low sodium, among others. While best known for soup, the company produces hundreds of premium prepared food products for restaurants, institutions, retailers and club stores in all 50 states.
Brain for Rent
Dave Lubelczyk | The Brain for Rent is a one-man think-tank who converts obstacles into jet-propelled actions. He specializes in helping entrepreneurs, management teams, and business owners get unstuck. By extracting solid timely action items out of the conceptual chaos and options that swirl around in the heads of entrepreneurs, Dave steers the business toward success and growth.
Brown University Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship
Brown University, founded in 1764, has a rich history of entrepreneurship and support of the local economy. Brown students, faculty and alumni take advantage of a growing array of undergraduate, graduate and continuing education courses, programs and events related to entrepreneurship and innovation. New ventures are a vibrant mix of for-profit and social mission companies that include bio-tech, green-tech, web, consumer, education, service, and healthcare. The Nelson Center, launched in 2016, provides an interdisciplinary approach to entrepreneurship learning and research that is unique in higher education.
Cherrystone Angel Group
Cherrystone Angel Group, founded in 2004, is Rhode Island’s first organized angel investment group and today includes approximately 50 members. All members are experienced and qualified investors who have either built their own companies or have extensive experience launching new business ventures. Many have done both. Their backgrounds include creating or working with manufacturing, distribution, technology, and service companies. Many have been serial entrepreneurs. To help ensure the success of our investments, Cherrystone Angel Group actively works with the entrepreneurs in which it invests.
Fidelity Investments
Fidelity Investments is one of the world’s largest providers of financial services, with assets under administration of $3.2 trillion, including managed assets of more than $1.4 trillion, as of September 30, 2011. Founded in 1946, the firm is a leading provider of investment management, retirement planning, portfolio guidance, brokerage, benefits outsourcing and many other financial products and services to more than 20 million individuals and institutions, as well as through 5,000 financial intermediary firms.
Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses at CCRI
Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses at CCRI is a 12-week business education program that helps Rhode Island small businesses grow and create jobs. Through the program, designed by Babson College - the top entrepreneurial school in the nation - small business owners gain practical skills in topics such as negotiation, marketing and employee management that can immediately be put into action. In addition, business owners receive the tools and professional support to develop a strategic and customized five-year growth plan. Every accepted applicant receives a full scholarship. Review eligibility requirements and apply at 10ksbapply.com.
Morgan Stanley – Richard G. Carriere, Financial Advisor
Richard G. Carriere, CFP®, CAP®
Senior Vice President and Financial Advisor, Morgan Stanley
Growth Partners
MassChallenge
MassChallenge was founded in 2009 with a singular purpose – to make it as easy as possible for entrepreneurs to launch and grow new ventures. Over the past decade, MassChallenge has played a vital role in strengthening local and global innovation economies. They have helped entrepreneurs from more than 54 countries solve some of the world’s massive problems. From a scrappy startup founded in Boston during the height of the global economic recession by two idealistic entrepreneurs to a network of nine accelerators in seven locations around the globe, MassChallenge and their 2,458 startups have had a transformative impact on the world.
New England Medical Innovation Center
The New England Medical Innovation Center provides expert support to innovators and entrepreneurs in the medical technologies space. We draw on an extensive network, implement curated workshops, facilitate clinical access, connect with investors, regulate working with the FDA and provide a co-working and office space to help harness creativity and productivity. Our goal is to incite individuals and accelerate Med Tech ideas into fundable and sustainable solutions.
RIHub Venture Mentoring Service
RIHub’s not-for-profit mission is all about driving economic transformation by helping entrepreneurs and startups more effectively focus and apply their ingenuity and innovation to reach their goals. At RIHub Venture Mentoring Service, they believe when an entrepreneur is connected with a team of experienced business people, good things will happen. Their goal is to increase and enhance the entrepreneurial talent pool in Rhode Island and enhance the success of RI ventures.