Mark StefanosThe NBA held a series of community-centered social impact events as part of the NBA All-Star festivities last week. Among them was the NBA Foundation All-Star Pitch Competition, a weeks-long endeavor that culminated in a Semi-Finals event on Tuesday, Dec. 2, with 10 early-stage startups, then narrowed to seven finalists who faced off in the Finals last Thursday, Feb. 12 at the Kia Forum.
Judge Issa Rae (Courtesy of NBA)
The theme of this year’s competition “Game Changers: Creators Building the Future” focused on Los Angeles-based entrepreneurs driving social and economic mobility. The startup owners competed for $200,000 in cash prizes to fund their ventures, which Clippers owner Steve Ballmer matched with an additional $200,000. Ahead of the finals, the seven finalists participated in an accelerator program with coaching and guidance from Melissa Bradley, General Partner of BEA Venture Fund, which is part of the Black Economic Alliance Foundation, a non-profit incubator for Black entrepreneurs.
The finalists pitched to an all-star panel of judges that included Ann Miller, EVP of Global Sports Marketing at Nike; Bozoma Saint John, a business leader and marketing executive; Issa Rae, famed creator and star of HBO’s Insecure and CEO of HooraeMedia; Ted Oberwager, Partner at investment firm KKR; and Will Bumpus, Partner at early-stage investment firm Westbound Equity.
Hamilton Perkins, CEO of Hamilton Perkins Collection, took home the $100,000 first-place cash prize to fund his manufacturing company which “transforms hard-to-recycle plastics into high-value materials, addressing the end-of-life textile waste challenge across the NBA and its franchises.”
“We turn trash to treasure,” Perkins elaborated to LA Weekly about his business. “We use fabric waste to turn it into something of higher value, like products that we sell to global brands.”
Hamilton Perkins Collection is now based in LA after coming from the East Coast two years ago. “We got in with the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator where we started our process and now we’re scaling up. We’re looking forward to continue to invest here in the local community.”
First place winner Hamilton Perkins (Courtesy of NBA)
Perkins said the Pitch Competition was an invaluable experience. “We’ve been in the programming for the past five weeks. We’ve gotten a chance to really look under the hood of our business and really plan, for not just the coming months, but years. That experience has not just gotten us to where we are now, but it’s going to really have an impact on us for years to come. So we’re grateful to the NBA Foundation.”
Anwar Douglas, Founder & CEO of Imperium Care, a healthcare and wellness company, took second place, and Yosh Miller, Founder & CEO of Hadley, a financial services startup, won third — both took home a $75,000 check. Mayowa Arogundade, Founder & CEO of Equal AI, also won $75,000 as part of the American Express Community All-Star Award.
Founded in 2020, the NBA Foundation’s mission is “to drive economic opportunity for youth, entrepreneurs, and HBCU students, with a specific focus on NBA markets. Since 2022, the NBA and NBA Foundation have invested nearly $500,000 in local entrepreneurs in NBA All-Star Cities as a part of our commitment to uplifting impact-driven organizations.”
“It’s an amazing opportunity,” says Perkins. We’ve met so many great people. We’ve been part of some amazing partnerships and we’re really just getting started. This is just the beginning.”
(Courtesy of NBA)