Venture 313 Powered With An Additional $6.4M Grant To Strengthen Support For Detroit Black Tech Founders – AfroTech
Detroit’s tech community is having a moment, and it’s only getting bigger.
Venture 313 is a coalition of organizations — including TechTown Detroit, Invest Detroit Ventures (ID Ventures), and Detroit Development Fund — that supports Detroit’s tech founders. It launched in 2022 with a three-year $ 10 million commitment from the Gilbert Family Foundation, according to a press release. The initiative supports non-dilutive grants of up to $15,000 from TechTown Detroit, dilutive equity of up to $250,000 from ID Ventures, and loans of up to $250,000 from Detroit Development Fund, according to information on its website.
Venture 313 targets founders from pre-seed through Series A, while continuing to serve organizations at later stages. Beyond capital, it provides executive coaching, fractional leadership, and conference sponsorships.
“One of the things we’re most proud of is that exposure that we’re able to give founders to national ecosystems or national events,” ID Ventures Principal Belvin Liles III told AFROTECH™. “We’re also able to spread the gospel of Detroit, if you will, to then hopefully inspire folks to come back to the city. So whether that’s a founder wanting to come back and start a company or investors looking to invest in folks there.”
Venture 313 also offers biweekly AI build nights, hackathons, workshops, clinics, and lunch-and-learns. Founders will benefit from business, technical, legal, and accounting support, as well as access to industry experts, according to ID Ventures Principal Belvin Liles III.
Venture 313’s Impact On Founders
AFROTECH™ spoke exclusively with founders who have benefited from Venture 313, including Darren Riley, whose experience developing asthma while living in Detroit inspired JustAir Solutions, an air quality company focused on improving community health.
Riley credits Venture 313 with helping JustAir grow its presence to 13 states.
Venture 313 has contributed capital, which helped JustAir expand its engineering team, test early customer adoption assumptions, and improve its technology. JustAir raised $1.15 million in a 2025 pre-seed round, bringing its total capital raise to $1.6 million, according to information shared with AFROTECH™.
Arabia Simeon founded the AI-powered civic tech company, Politics on the Go (POGO), which uses AI to simplify civic engagement for Gen Z and millennial voters through candidate profiles, local government tracking, and a digital voter guide.
Venture 313 provided Simeon with tech resources and conference sponsorships, including the AFROTECH™ Conference, which connected her with like-minded venture capitalists and angel investors. This has been critical as she is in the midst of raising a pre-seed round, she told AFROTECH™.
She also attended go-to-market and sales workshops that led to a five-figure contract with a major gubernatorial campaign.
“Those workshops led me to my biggest deal yet,” she expressed.
Additionally, Venture 313 connected Simeon with a professional development team for “little to no cost,” helping her onboard the platform’s first users during beta testing.
POGO will soon launch in Michigan with plans to expand in New York by November, then to all 50 states by the 2028 election.
Marc Howland, a former Goldman Sachs investment banker, co-founded wellness-focused fast-casual restaurant franchise Breadless. Venture 313 supported the company through conference sponsorship and investment. Howland credited ID Ventures as a key equity investor and the Detroit Development Fund with equipment financing. Breadless has since grown into a multimillion-dollar business with four locations around the greater Detroit area.
“As a collective, we’re reflective of not just our core team, but the entire city of Detroit and Venture 313 and all our community partners, investors, stakeholders, and it takes a village. We feel really excited for this next step we’re entering, where we have the people coming to [us] for the opportunity to bring their own Breadlesses to communities everywhere,” Howland told AFROTECH™.
$6.4M Commitment
Now, Venture 313 is being fueled through a $6.4 million renewal grant from the Gilbert Family Foundation, according to a press release.
Venture 313 has supported more than 125 businesses, helping them gain access to more than $50 million in additional investment capital, according to information shared with AFROTECH™.
