The founders selected for the fifth cohort of the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center’s Anchor Accelerator program were announced last week on the third floor of the Millennium Student Center. (Photo by Derik Holtmann)

With the announcement of the new cohort for the 2025 Anchor Accelerator program, the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center at the University of Missouri–St. Louis continues to expand its impact on the growing entrepreneur community in the St. Louis region.

This cohort is comprised of 12 founders who will share $140,000 in funding from the EIC and its sponsors while participating in the comprehensive five-course program, working with mentors and local business owners and utilizing tailored resources to scale their businesses. Edward Jones is a primary sponsor for the EIC. This cohort builds on past success stories and includes seven Momentum Builder grants chosen in partnership with EIC partners Schnucks, WEPOWER and Arch Grants as part of the EIC’s efforts to build a community of collaboration.

Entrepreneurs representing a total of 21 businesses presented their companies to a judging panel of distinguished local business professionals at PitchFest ’24, an all-day event held Wednesday at UMSL’s Millennium Student Center. The judges’ scores were tabulated by a program created by Denise Williams, an UMSL alum and past participant in the Anchor Accelerator program with her company, Real Document Solutions.

“What a hard job the judges had!” said Scott Morris, director of the EIC. “We saw so many fantastic local businesses and passionate founders.”

The 2025 Anchor Accelerator Cohort includes:

– Sylvester Chisom & Samantha Lurie Carroll, Show Me The World Project – $50,000

– Sophie Mendelson, Sugarwitch – $20,000

– Lisa Hu, Lux and Nyx – $10,000

– Chris Upchurch, Gift With Bear – $10,000

– Nkenge Miller, Metro Glow – $10,000

And also the Momentum Builder grant winners:

– Makenzie Johnson, Bella’s Pet Products $10,000 (Schnucks Springboard)

– Chris Bonty, MoTaste Spices – $10,000 (Schnucks Springboard)

– James Barnes, Barnes Landscaping – $10,000 (WEPOWER)

– Jordan Russell, R2 – $2,500 (Arch Grants)

– Pierre Paul, We Hear You – $2,500 (Arch Grants)

– Calvin Windschitl, Habitat Financial – $2,500 (Arch Grants)

– Angelica Harris, Top Tutors for Us – $2,500 (Arch Grants)

Chisom, who also participated in the Schnucks Springboard accelerator, was thrilled to receive the top prize.

“We are a mission-based coffee company, and our mission is to support youth from under-resourced communities with life-changing educational experiences at home and abroad,” he said. “We use coffee to fuel all that work. It’s a social venture. Students from schools like Vashon or University City, when they’re in the program we teach them everything about coffee, from the plant-to-cup process. They’ll go to Costa Rica and work in coffee farms, then come here and they’re involved in branding, packaging, merchandising and e-commerce. We’re at Tower Grove Farmer’s Market every week. The coffee we sell goes toward funding those international trips.”

Director of the EIC Scott Morris (right) congratulates Sylvester Chisom for earning a $50,000 grant as part of the 2025 Anchor Accelerator cohort.

Chisom has very specific plans for the $50,000 – the larger portion of the capital investment will go toward building a virtual fundraising platform to keep up with the growing demand. They have one now, but it’s labor-intensive on the back end and having a more automated system would help tap into a market that’s ripe with opportunity. The other portion will go toward marketing and promotions as the company’s coffee is rolled out into 15 Schnucks grocery stores in the near future.

The capital investment is important for every founder, of course, but that’s far from the only benefit. Sugarwitch’s Sophie Mendelson said she has already seen the benefit of making connections with the mentors and local business professionals involved with the program.

“Absolutely. Even just some of the questions from the judges have us thinking about some of the directions we could take,” she said. “One of them mentioned they know the slicing machine that we need for our ice cream sandwich product, and that was a question that could have taken us months to figure out on our own, even with focus and funding. I think the connections we’ll make through this program and this cohort – none of us have a formal business background, so we’re kinda making it up as we go – will be huge.”

James Barnes started working as a laborer with a landscaping company when he was 17, and now he owns his own landscaping company, which does everything from building retaining walls, fences, porches and patios to removing trees, laying sod, pouring concrete and pretty much any other outdoors-related project. Barnes was connected to this cohort through WEPOWER.

“It’s been going well, and I’ve enjoyed it so far,” Barnes said of his company, which he started in 2020. “I have six employees, have a little bit of equipment that I work with, a few commercial contracts I deal with. The Accelerator can, literally, accelerate me to where I want to go to, helping to get more employees and also expanding my services to bigger and broader projects.”

This is fifth cohort for the Anchor Accelerator program, and word is spreading in St. Louis’ growing community of entrepreneurs.

The groups that earned the top two capital infusions – Show Me The World Project and Sugarwitch – both heard of the program from past Anchor Accelerator participants. Chisom is friends with Michelle Robinson, who was part of Cohort 1 with her business, DEMIblue Natural Nails, and he’s also friends with Pat Upchurch, who was part of Cohort 4 with Patty’s Cheesecakes. Mendelson has set up at the Tower Grove Farmer’s Market alongside Rachel Burns, who was part of Cohort 3 with Bold Spoon Creamery.

That’s exactly the type of impact Morris is hoping the EIC can create in the St. Louis area.

“Gravitational pull: That’s how I describe the way in which we are building community,” Morris said. “UMSL transforms lives. We want everyone to believe this and hope they feel pulled to get involved. For example, our judges were a list of who’s who from St. Louis businesses. These people dedicated an entire day to selecting our winners. The audience was full all day with past winners, faculty, staff and students who allow themselves to be pulled into what we are doing. We get to transform lives – could there be anything more important than that?”

It’s not just entrepreneurs who are taking notice. The judging panel was full of influential business professionals, and collaboration with Schnucks, WEPOWER and Arch Grants are evidence of a community figuring out how to best support entrepreneurs collectively.

Daryle Johnson, the vice president of strategy for Mid-States Minority Supplier Development Council, was at PitchFest representing the Schnucks Springboard. As he was talking about his involvement from the third floor of the MSC, he pointed toward the escalator.

“See how this stairway is moving?” he said. “Your city needs to organize its resources so that when you start down there – like, I had a dream last night and I’m sitting at my kitchen table thinking about starting a business – you can go to Cortex or some early stage resource, then you go to the Schnucks accelerator, then you eventually get to the UMSL Accelerator where you learn how to raise A-round funding from local investors. The cities that have this organized are the ones that everybody talks about as great because they have, basically, a moving stairway that you get on.”

Johnson paused and looked around at the members of latest cohort chatting with each other.

“That’s what Scott is doing,” he said. “He’s pulling the ecosystem together and making sure we’re not being duplicative in the offerings in the marketplace.

“That’s why it’s important for us to partner with organizations like UMSL, because you are our next level.”