About Us
Hi. Thanks for stopping by. The KINETIC startup team is really, really busy, building the next version of our platform. We hope to have it ready soon. Also, we have been making final preparations for our third annual conference, KINETIC-CON. The theme is “Funding Matters”. Not only are we staying up late coding the KINETIC platform with cold pizza by our side, but we are also sending countless e-mails to make sure that all of our esteemed speakers are ready for KINETIC-CON. We cannot forget about school, as many of us have full course loads of physics, financial management, statistics, and so on. Anyway, we are so passionate about this project and are happy to share with you our vision/mission. Now back to work, and see you at KINETIC-CON.
Vision/Mission
We envision a world where funding is available, accessible, and adequate for all people to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams.
Leadership Team
Morgan Franklin, Marketing
Vanderbilt, University of Chicago
Kevin D. Johnson, Founder
Morehouse, MIT, Harvard
Ariel Powell, Strategy
Howard, Duke
Jonah Travis, Outreach
Harvard, Columbia
Advisory Board*
Andrew J. Young — Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Civil Rights Activist
John Thompson — Chairman Emeritus, Microsoft
Bill Aulet — Managing Director of Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship
Hakim “Chamillionaire” Seriki — Investor and former EIR at Upfront Ventures
*The board serves only in an advocate and mentor role. No compensation.
Our Brief Story
The KINETIC team, comprised of about 10 people, is a motley crew of determined, dedicated, and diligent young professionals who recognized an opportunity to solve a major problem: lack of economic justice in the United States. Yes, it’s a big problem, but we think that we can play an integral part in helping to solve the problem by making sure that funding for entrepreneurs is more equitably deployed. Many of us are graduate students pursuing our MBAs and running our own businesses, some of which have received funding ranging from $1,000 to $1.5MM. Thus, we know quite intimately the problem that we are solving. We attend or have attended MIT, Morehouse, Howard, Harvard, Spelman, Stanford, and many other great institutions of higher learning. Despite our diverse backgrounds, we all share a love for entrepreneurship and the opportunity it presents for economic progress, especially for people who have historically been overlooked and undervalued. After much research (thanks Kauffman Foundation), thought, and painful deliberation, we decided to focus on building a platform that primarily helps entrepreneurs find, receive, and learn about funding, a necessity for any business to thrive. In short, this is our story, and we hope that you’ll join us on this exciting journey.