Beyond the hats and the hype...🏇

We love any reason to celebrate Baltimore, and Preakness holds a particular place for the City with the global media coverage, pomp and ceremony. The annual Triple Crown spectacle draws concert goers, racing enthusiasts and fashionistas from across the country. It's an important boost for the local economy, but that two-minute race is a sugar rush, a sweet treat on a spring day, for Baltimore. We can enjoy it while focusing on what endures, including the change that is happening right beyond the fences of Pimlico.

Park Heights, the neighborhood that borders Pimlico and raised our current mayor, is building in extraordinary ways -- attracting new residents, new investment and new innovation. Park Heights Renaissance has been leading the way with innovative new development and community advocacy. In the heart of the neighborhood, about a mile and a half straight down Park Heights Avenue from Pimlico is Plantation Park Heights Urban Farm, named one of the most innovative farms in the country. It was founded by a native Trinidadian -- Richard "Farmer Chippy" Francis -- who's applying his biomedical background to growing cleaner, greener foods. And the Plantation is expanding its reach to 30 vacant Baltimore City-owned lots with a goal of supporting famers growing 250,000 pounds of food.

This is the kind of innovation that makes our community thrive. The Plantation may never have the attention of the 8 million people who watched the Preakness on Saturday. But those who stay here after the race can be grateful that these are the entrepreneurs who are making Baltimore home for the rest of us. 

 What's UP: Founders

• Think|Stack is growing! It acquired Wisconsin-based Emergifi with an eye on serving more small and mid-sized credit unions.
• After a national search, Greenland Technologies picked Maryland as the place to expand its manufacturing of electrical industrial vehicles. 🌿 Good choice!
• The Maryland Stem Cell Research Commission awarded over $7M to 24 scientists accelerating research. (P.S.: Next round of funding is open for applications!)
• Ladies! Femly's organic products will soon be in restrooms at M&T Bank Stadium. 🚻 We 💜 these Baltimore connex. 
• Emergent BioSolutions has a deal for exclusive worldwide rights to the first drug approved by the FDA to treat smallpox. 
• Eyedea Medical was the big winner at JHU's Innovation and Entrepreneurship Challenge -- one of 13 companies to take home $170K in prizes. 🏆🤑
• With a 27K square-foot expansion in Baltimore City and a goal of adding 150 new jobs by 2024, Outlook Enterprises is killing it! 
• Shout out to the five companies in 1501 Health's first cohort and to the 20 (including CyDeploy, Fem Equity and WholeCare!) in the Techstars Founders Catalyst program, which both hosted Demo Days!
• Modern Healthcare calls b.well Connected Health one of the best places to work in healthcare today... and they're hiring.
• Check out the eight tech startups that topped The Tech Tribune's list for best in Columbia, Md., led by cybersecurity-focused SnapAttack. 🔐  
• 📢 Founders, we still need your help! UpSurge is working with JHU's 21st Century Cities Initiative to understand the diversity of Baltimore tech. Please take a few minutes to complete this anonymized, confidential survey.  

Want an intro to any of these companies? Send us a note!

What's UP: Funders

• Latimer founder Luke Cooper is University of Maryland, Baltimore's second Presidential Distinguished Scholar. 

What's UP: Friends

• Project Waves and Enterprise Community Partners are teaming up to provide free internet 📶, computer training and equipment 💻 at two Baltimore local apartment complexes, advancing an effort to shrink the digital divide. 
• Baltimore native and Slutty Vegan founder Aisha "Pinky" Cole gave every member of Clark Atlanta U's senior class an unusual graduation present: their own LLC. 🎓
• And another Baltimore local, Clarence Wooten, is joining the board of PopCom as it scales nationally. 

Heads UP: Opportunities

• Startups focused on clean-energy solutions have until May 31 ⏰ to apply for the hybrid Rice Alliance Clean Energy Accelerator. 
• Baltimore's VFA Site Director Cory Anderson is moving to a national role 🎉 and the organization is looking for someone to fill his big shoes. 👟 

Heads UP: Events

• Three more days of the online showcase for Conscious Venture Lab's 8th cohort! (5-6:30 p.m. through Thursday) & you can still apply for the 9th cohort! 
• The 20th Ingenuity Project STEM Research Symposium is May 25 at 5 p.m. This is the future of tech! 👩🏾‍💻👨🏾‍💻👩‍💻
• Cyber Summer Pitch Night, hosted by bwtech@umbc and the Maryland New Venture Cyber Fellowship is June 1 on the UMBC campus. 
• Register here for an Anchor Ventures webinar on June 2 focused on how CIOs at large health systems and hospitals prioritize critical innovation needs. 

Rise UP: Learn

• Meet the newest member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and its first Black woman. And Dr. Lisa Cook seems to get it. As she says: "If you rely on the same old people, you're going to get the same old ideas." Yup.

Catch UP: Media

• Maryland is leading the country in the pace of growth ↗️ within the tech workforce and we have the lowest gender gap! 
• Animation TV will the first Black-owned animation when it launches this summer... just in time to start tapping into Baltimore's burgeoning talent pool!

The UpShot is Baltimore’s Equitech ecosystem news, curated for startups, founders, funders and friends, all working together to build the country’s first Equitech City. ↗️↗️↗️