Melamoon has returned for its second year and is reaching the finish line. The national pitch competition created by The Federation of African Canadian Economics sees dozens of Black founders compete to secure capital to enhance their business. “The reason we created Melamoon is because we wanted to resolve an issue that we found by speaking to many founders across the country through our regular work at face, through our loan program,” says Tiffany Callender, the federation’s CEO. “A lot of entrepreneurs who are starting their businesses, who are in accelerators or incubators, were told that the first step to getting some capital to begin their activities would be family and friends. And a lot of our founders (said) ‘We don’t really have anybody in our immediate network that we’d be able to depend on getting enough seed capital to be able to start our activity,’” Callendar explains. “We decided to solve two things. First, create a no-equity pitch competition that will allow entrepreneurs to win a substantial amount of capital that would make a difference in boosting or scaling their companies. And secondly, making it so that with one pitch competition, you can win up to $100,000. And I think that that’s a pretty good ticket size for any business, anywhere in the world.” The competition is down to 50 finalists, including 10 from Atlantic Canada. Stacy Darku owns two mental health clinics in Nova Scotia, one in Dartmouth and the other in Lower Sackville, and is one of the finalists. “We provide mental health therapy to all ages, starting from three years old, all the way up until adulthood,” says Darku. “This was an opportunity for Black entrepreneurs and I felt like this was the right moment for us to showcase what we do here in Nova Scotia.” Nicholas LaValle is another Dartmouth-based finalist. He is the founder of Clean Valley, an aquaculture company. “We build into shipping containers, hatcheries for oysters and seaweed and mussels. And we send those all across the globe and provide them to farmers as a service so that they can focus on the farm,” he says. Only five finalists will make it to Toronto for a final pitch to secure $100,000 for their business. “Obviously our hope is to win, but more so to showcase our business,” says Darku. “To see an entrepreneur go on stage to showcase what they do and how they can support people, can be very inspiring to our young folks.” John Omotayo is the CEO of Divine Integrated Services, a digital strategy company based in Saint John. He also hopes to win the funding to help accelerate the commercialization of one of his AI-powered growth automation platform, FlowNurture. “If we are selected, it is going to greatly accelerate the commercialization of FlowNurture because we have an ambitious drive to scale up to 5,000 users within the next 12 months,” he says. There is hope this competition will continue to level the playing field for Black founders across the country. “We have always contributed to the larger economic framework of Canada, but everybody’s journey is different. This is our way of creating a pathway that makes it accessible for them and gives them the fuel to be able to participate, grow in scale and contribute to Canada’s larger economy,” says Callender. For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page
