Devin Vandermaas, founder of designer agency The Factory 2.0 and clothing line, Georgie and Elaine, at the Bad Girl Ventures graduation ceremony in Key Tower, Cleveland. Congratulations to Camille Ziegenhagen and Devin Vandermaas for being finalists this year with Bad Girl Ventures.
From the Bad Girl Ventures Page:
Bad Girl Ventures is an eduacational and micro-finance organization dedicated to inspiring and supporting woman entrepreneurs in all the key elements in their business. BGV enables female entrepreneurs to build and sustain well managed, profitable businesses through guidance, education and access to capital.
While women make up 60% of the US population and earn 60% of all bachelor degrees, Ohio has struggled to find women to lead startup companies. This is not because women lack the ideas or the capacity. Women simply have a more difficult time finding financing. In fact, although women own 50% of all privately held companies, they have access to only 5% of traditional capital. Bad Girl Ventures is intended to be a highly localized micro-lending organization focused on woman-owned startups to address this disparity.
Bad Girl Ventures combines micro-lending with a nine week business development course. Each three hour class is taught successful business owners and professionals from the local community with in-depth experience in their fields. Each class consists of a two hour classroom session followed by a one hour one-on-one coaching session where experts in the industry spend time answering questions in a "speed date" type setting. Each nine week course is held two to three times a year.
What an honor for Camille, Devin, and The Factory 2.0 to be a part of this wonderful program!
