August is National Black Business Month, a time to celebrate and support African American entrepreneurs.

The Detroit-based Venture 313 is assisting Black tech founders by providing access to capital, mentorship, and other much needed resources.

The initiative is funded by the Gilbert Family Foundation and operates through three organizations, TechTown Detroit, Invest Detroit Ventures, and the Detroit Development Fund.

Joining me now is one of the managing partners, Belvin Liles of ID Ventures, along with Karissma Yve, who is the founder of Gildform and a recipient of Venture 313's support.

Welcome both of you to" American Black Journal."

You know, it seems like every month I'm talking with somebody about the access to capital issue that we have with African American businesses.

I mean, it is, I think, one of the kind of premier issues.

I'm a small business owner.

I am familiar with some of those challenges.

But let's talk about how Venture 313 kind of approaches this maybe differently than some of the other organizations that are trying to fix it.

- Yeah.

So you mentioned three different partners.

You have Invest Detroit Ventures, which is the equity kind of venture.

Dilutive side, you have TechTown Detroit, which is the non-dilutive grant funding side, and Detroit Development Fund, which is the the loan side.

And so amongst those three partners, we're able to have a capital continuum where folks can receive different types of financing depending on their needs.

But not just with capital, you know, it takes more than just capital to help support these founders.

So we also figure out creative ways we can wrap other resources around them and help them grow and matriculate.

- Yeah, what are some of those other, some of those other resources?

- Yeah, whether it's different workshops, whether it's product development, sales and marketing, executive coaching.

Sometimes we help hire fractional support for founders.

We help sponsor them to go to different events like a South by Southwest or AFROTECH.

So you know, right now, we're running different AI build nights through TechTown Detroit where folks can come in, and whether you're in the beginner level or more advanced state, learn how to leverage AI to help support your business.

So a multitude of different ways.

And fortunately we've been able to assist Karissma and Gildform with some of those resources as well.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

So tell me about Gildform.

- Yeah, Gildform is a AI product creation infrastructure and platform.

- Okay.

- So essentially we help creators and brands small, medium-sized businesses, as well as some of the world's largest enterprise companies from fashion to entertainment turn their product ideas into reality, literally starting with just an idea.

So the way that that works is they come to Gildform onto the platform.

They come with an idea in the form of a sketch, a reference image, a few simple words, and our patented technology will then turn that idea into a product that's ready for manufacturing.

And we didn't stop there.

We actually do manufacturing.

So we have a factory here in Detroit- - Wow.

- that's really creating products end to end, starting from 3D printing, doing the casting, the polishing, you name it.

And the type of products that we're focused on is hard goods.

So you can think jewelry, fashion hardware and trims such as buttons, super pulls, belt buckles, collectibles, figurines and home decor.

- Yeah.

So what led you to this work?

- So I've always been a creator at heart.

And I think that ever since I was, I think it started when I was about 14 years old, I decided that I had a, like, vision.

I needed to make something.

And oddly enough, it started with a button.

And I became obsessed with how buttons were made.

And I was like, well, how do I make a button?

But not just any button, I wanted a precious metal button.

I wanted it to be made of silver.

- Okay.

- And I, growing up on the west side of Detroit, you know, I think that was an odd sort of request as a 14-year-old going to your parents like, "I want-" - A silver button.

- "I want to make a silver button."

They're like, "Okay, how do you make that?

What do you do?"

And I remember my mom was like, "Yeah, sure.

You figure out how to do it.

You do whatever you want, sister girl.

More power to you."

And I took that as a bit of a challenge and I figured out how to do LA Swags casting.

And before I knew it, I had a nice little casting operation in my basement.

And from there, I discovered the power of product creation.

- Yeah.

- I think that ideas are like the most important thing known to humanity.

I think the reason that we're here today is because of people's ideas.

- Yeah.

- And I thought about like that gap between like me having my ideas.

And if I didn't have the willpower, if I didn't have just this crazy obsession to like figure out how to make my ideas real, that idea wouldn't have come into fruition.

- Sure.

- And I just became obsessed with this like, you know, ideas that are this process that, ideas typically go uncreated.

They go unrealized.

- Yeah.

- And with Gildform, I wanted to remove that barrier completely.

- Wow.

And so 313 Ventures is really moved you to the ability to make that work, right?

I mean you're manufacturing.

I know how expensive that is.

And then you're doing all of these other things.

I mean, without this would that have been possible?

- Yeah, no.

So when I think about ideas, and I said, ideas are the most important thing known to humanity.

Guilform is a big, was a big idea.

It was, I want to create technology.

I want to redefine and disrupt the way that products are made.

Essentially disrupting an entire supply chain and democratizing it.

Giving access to anybody to make anything, no matter what their budget is, no matter what access to equipment or machinery that they have.

But in order to do that, I essentially needed to be that.

And Venture 313 really was able to bridge that gap for me in my idea and make my idea real.

- Yeah.

- So that I can... And so essentially we can empower a world of small, medium-sized businesses ideas, as well as enterprise companies and make their ideas real.

And so I think about Venture 313's support and not just supporting me or Gildform, but also supporting the thousands of creators that are creating on our platform.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, one of the things that occurs to me about her story is, I didn't know anything about that business until she just told me about it.

You're giving a platform, I think, to people who wouldn't otherwise have it so that people know Detroit.

And they know what we're doing here in Detroit and they know what we're capable of.

I think that's a much bigger idea, in fact, than, you know, just giving businesses assistance or a lift.

- Yeah, I think one of the things that we take pride in is not only are we a check, but we help provide that other access.

So whether that's helping take you out of state to a different conference where you can meet other investors, you can meet potential customers, you can meet potential employees, other folks that are in your industry, so you can brainstorm together or maybe even commiserate together to get over that next hump because a founder's journey is a lonely journey.

And the more support that you can have, then the better off that founder can be.

And if you look at everything that's going on in the world right now, you know, there's AI, but even deeper than that, there's physical AI.

And so you look at what Gildform is doing, you look at Detroit's history, and you look at advanced manufacturing, the way they were set up.

Detroit's really set up to be that focal point of the future with physical AI.

- Yeah.

Talk about some of the other businesses that you're able to help and kind of lift up.

- Yeah.

I mean, we have a lot.

You know, you have CircNova, which is a biotech company that's based here in Detroit.

It's something you don't see all the time.

There's JustAir, which is helping tackle the different air quality monitoring and efficiencies within that.

And that's something that the founder Darren started after he... He didn't have asthma before he started living in Southwest Detroit because he was living with some of those plants.

I think there was a fire recently.

So being able to monitor that air quality which disproportionately affects Black communities.

I think about a ChurchSpace, which is helping utilize underutilized space within churches.

So helping with that last mile delivery.

I think about a ConStrat AI, which is helping contractors manage their finances better so that they can actually finish projects where a lot of them aren't able to especially within the Black community.

Sometimes those subcontractors or even prime contractors go under because they're not able to manage their finances properly.

You know, I think about a Hush which is cybersecurity.

You know, we hear a lot about scamming these days.

I'm sure we all get those phone calls, those text messages.

So Hush is helping you protect your identity, protect your information.

I can go on and on.

There's a lot of them.

And there's even folks there are moving here.

You think of a Reportwell, which is in the compliance space, specifically in education.

So being able to help manage the different compliances that school systems have to go through to make sure they're receiving the proper funding.

You know, on and on.

There's a lot of examples of different people here who are working in different industries that are the future of technology today.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

What do you hope the people that you're able to help with Gildform sort of see in your business and learn about, I guess, themselves from it?

- That your ideas are important and they are worth being realized.

And I think even looking at like my own journey and me fighting and, you know, to really realize this vision for Gildform to be the first of its kind, all in one on-demand design and manufacturing platform, and essentially a product creation infrastructure that it is valuable to connect with the local partners, the local organizations.

Like Venture 313 where, for example, I myself was able to tap into things like executive coaching, getting the capital that's needed to invest in hiring and really building a team to kind of move on this vision with me and to grow it and to scale it.

And, you know, from there I've really been able to kind of, again, bridge that gap.

There's more work to do.

We have a really, really big vision.

- [Stephen] Yeah.

- And so I think that when it comes to making ideas real, one of the things that not many people realize is like, there is, you have point A, you have point B. And to get from point A to point B, you have to be something different.

You have to do something different.

And Venture 313 has really supported that, my journey as the founder and CEO of Gildform going from point A to point B.

- Wow.

- Getting access to the capital but also being different.

And positioning ourselves, as a company, to really put ourselves on the map when it comes to supporting some of the world's biggest organizations and bringing their product ideas into reality and giving them that disruption that they needed to make their products faster, better, and more efficient than ever before.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, congratulations to both of you on the work, and thanks for being here on "American Black Journal."

- Thank you.

- Thank you, Stephen.