When founding The Refinery, Janis Collens and Jennifer Gabler set out to provide companies with the resources needed to fuel entrepreneurship and innovation in the workplace, and they did this by focusing on the education of the fundamentals of business, mentoring, and building a community between mentors, peers, and partners. Since founding The Refinery, they have raised over $30 million in funds and have awarded over $260,000 in non-diluted grants to various innovation projects that they take part in every year. Their current project, Innovation to Impact at Yale, is a project dedicated to helping those with substance use disorders using innovation. These programs offer companies access to the investors and press necessary for their startups to blossom into booming businesses.
The Refinery offers to provide 90+ subject mentors to growing organizations to help them build the skills and experience necessary to thrive in the market. These mentors help these companies to fully understand their customers’ needs, build deep connections within the company team, refine their company branding, establish a strong business model, and more. The Refinery helps these businesses build the foundations needed to continue to grow and thrive. They also hold a yearly pitch competition for companies and teams to pitch their innovation projects. This competition has helped over 250 women-led tech companies receive the funding they need for their businesses to prosper.
Besides offering a chance to talk to investors and mentors from all different backgrounds, The Refinery also offers a career blog on their website that offers posts about success stories, entrepreneurial advice, as well as a quiz that will show you if you are ready for The Refinery program. Reach out to refineryct@gmail.com to discuss pitches, funding and implementation strategies, or the current market climate for your industry.
To learn more about what The Refinery has to offer or access, click HERE.
Photos courtesy of The Refinery™
