Founders First Capital Partners, Inc.

09/01/2026

Chicago filled. Buffalo filled.

Philadelphia is closing to new registrations shortly, and Twin Cities is right behind it.

San Diego, you're next. October 21.

"Most seminars I attend for small businesses are good. This one was beyond excellent." That's Sue Ecker, after Chicago.

💰 $160,000 in grants, every attendee is automatically considered
🙌 Direct conversations with capital providers actively investing in businesses like yours
📈 Funding pathways of up to $2M
💬 Real insights from founders who've scaled to $10M and beyond

Applications for San Diego open today. Seats are filled on a rolling basis, so earlier is better.

Request your invite: https://hubs.la/Q04w5fMz0

08/31/2026

Access to capital gets a founder through the door.

Relevant capital helps them stay an owner.

That distinction is the subject of our founder and CEO Kim T. Folsom's new piece in ImpactAlpha.

Her argument: expansion-stage businesses have to finance capacity before they can monetize it. Hire before the contract starts. Invest in tech before the productivity shows up.

Most financing isn't built for that cycle. So growth itself becomes a source of financial stress.

What our 2025 Market Impact Report shows is possible when the capital fits:

$44.5M+ in projected wealth creation
58% of new jobs paying premium wages
94% average annual revenue growth with capital plus advisory support

Read the full article here:

Kim Folsom asks, "Are we giving entrepreneurs the right financial tools to turn resilience into sustainable growth and long-term wealth?"

08/27/2026

You've been told no by people who never read past page one.

Maybe you run a services business, so the SaaS lenders passed.

Maybe your growth is real but doesn't graph the way somebody's thesis wanted.

Maybe you stopped asking, because the last four conversations cost more than they were worth.

The Twin Cities funding scene isn't short on resources. Grants, chambers, accelerators, workshops — they're all there.

What's missing is a clear starting point for founders past early-stage who are generating real revenue.

If that's you — $250K+ in revenue, done with pitch competitions, ready for an actual conversation about growth capital — the Capital Activation Experience is built for you.

💰 $160,000 in grants, every attendee is automatically considered

🙌 Direct conversations with capital providers actively investing in businesses like yours

📈 Funding pathways of up to $2M

💬 Real insights from founders who've scaled to $10M and beyond

📍 Twin Cities, MN | October 8, 2026 | Free to attend | Limited spots available

Chicago and Buffalo were both oversubscribed. Don't let this be your "I should've applied when I had the chance" moment.

Tag a founder who's been carrying this quietly.

👉 Register here:

Join the Twin Cities Capital Activation Experience to access growth capital, grants, funder matchmaking, and leadership support for scaling businesses.

08/26/2026

FUNDER SPOTLIGHT: CAE Philadelphia 🎉

Meet Pursuit Lending, one of the funders joining us at the table for CAE Philly on September 22!

Pursuit's mission is empowering businesses in all communities with access to affordable loans and resources — helping them reach higher, transform, and grow.

Their loans range from $10,000 to $5.5 million, and they've funded Philadelphia businesses across neighborhoods from Fishtown and Kensington to South Philly and Germantown.

Representing Pursuit will be Tom Dowling, Vice President — he'll be in the room ready to talk directly with founders about capital access.

📍 Haven't secured your seat yet? Now's the time.
👉 [RSVP link]

08/26/2026

FUNDER SPOTLIGHT: CAE Philadelphia 🎉

Meet Pursuit Lending, one of the funders joining us at the table for CAE Philly on September 22!

Pursuit's mission is empowering businesses in all communities with access to affordable loans and resources — helping them reach higher, transform, and grow.

Their loans range from $10,000 to $5.5 million, and they've funded Philadelphia businesses across neighborhoods from Fishtown and Kensington to South Philly and Germantown.

Representing Pursuit will be Tom Dowling, Vice President — he'll be in the room ready to talk directly with founders about capital access.

📍 Haven't secured your seat yet? Now's the time.
👉 https://hubs.la/Q04vnnxR0

08/21/2026

Capital was built to recognize a certain kind of company.

Somewhere along the way, it stopped looking for the rest.

Those are the founders we build rooms for.

On October 8, we're building one in Minneapolis.

The Capital Activation Experience is coming to the Twin Cities.

One day. A curated room of growth-stage founders and the capital providers actually writing checks to businesses like theirs.

No pitch competition.

No panel about the funding gap.

No explaining yourself for the fourth time.

💰 $160,000 in grants, every attendee is automatically considered

🙌 Direct conversations with capital providers actively investing in businesses like yours

📈 Funding pathways of up to $2M

💬 Real insights from founders who've scaled to $10M and beyond

Chicago was oversubscribed. Buffalo was oversubscribed. Philadelphia is next month.

The Twin Cities is October 8 — alongside Hello Alice, Twin Cities Quorum, ICIC, NVBDC, NCRC, Right to Start, Accelerator for America, and NGLCC.

📍 Minneapolis, MN | October 8, 2026

Don't let this be your "I should've applied when I had the chance" moment.

Know a Twin Cities founder who belongs in this room? Tag them below.

Access to capital shouldn't be a privilege — it's the whole point.

08/20/2026

Sulaiman W. Rahman got tired of hearing there was no pipeline. So he built one.

He's the Founder, President, and CEO of DiverseForce, a human capital firm working at the level where the real decisions get made: boards, executive search, and the AI that's rewiring how organizations hire.

The receipts: 375+ professionals of color trained and placed into 325+ board seats through DiverseForce On Boards, built with the University of Pennsylvania. 75+ senior and C-suite leaders placed. And BBEx Network, which he started in 2007 and grew into one of Greater Philadelphia's deepest talent communities.

Here's why founders should care. You already know your numbers. What you probably don't have is a board that opens doors, or a warm line to the people who decide. That's the gap Sulaiman has spent eighteen years closing for other people — and he's coming to talk about how you close it for yourself.

On September 22, Sulaiman joins us in Philadelphia for the Capital Activation Experience.

If you're a growth-stage B2B or B2G founder, this is not a conference. It's a small, curated room of founders, active funders, and ecosystem partners — built for the conversations that actually move something forward.

📍 Philadelphia, PA
📅 Tuesday, September 22

Buffalo filled. Chicago filled. Philadelphia is the same size room:  (https://hubs.ly/Q04tDMqh0)

08/18/2026

Aervivo had contracts to win—and a faster path to recurring revenue.

What it didn't have was the upfront capital to pursue them.

After pivoting into multifamily housing, Aervivo needed additional capital for business development and operations. Its existing lender wouldn't provide it.

Founders First Capital Partners did.

Over 16 months, FFCP provided $485,000 across four loans, giving Aervivo the capital to keep pursuing RFPs, deliver on contracts and scale.

The result:
→ A new recurring revenue stream that quickly reached $1M ARR
→ Contracts with the potential to scale 10x
→ 106% revenue growth

As Founder & CEO Mike Hart put it:
“Unlike traditional lenders, they helped us unlock capital to scale business development and operations, deliver on contracts, and keep responding to RFPs to 10x our pipeline.”

And Aervivo is one example of a much larger story.

To date, FFCP has:
→ Disbursed $23M in growth capital
→ Seen member companies go on to raise $123M in external capital
→ Projected $44.5M in wealth creation by portfolio companies through year-end 2025

That's what access to the right capital at the right stage can make possible.

Explore our Q2 2026 Market Impact Report: https://hubs.la/Q04ttN5c0

08/14/2026

Small business optimism just reached an 11-month high.

That's good news—and we're optimistic, too.

Because we've seen what can happen when small business owners have the resources to turn that optimism into action.

Over the past 10 years, the Founders First community has grown from:
116 → 5,062 companies served
16 → 2,777 full-time jobs created
$1M → $116M in funding secured

And we've grown right alongside them, deploying more than $20M in our own capital to help businesses move forward.

These numbers tell a story we're incredibly proud of. But they also point to something bigger:

Imagine what the next 10 years could look like if more growth-ready businesses have access to the capital, resources and opportunities they need to scale.

We're ready to find out.

Explore 10 years of impact in our 2025 Impact Report:
https://hubs.ly/Q04t3-HW0

08/12/2026

Karla Trotman didn't inherit a company. She inherited a decision.

Today she's President and CEO of Electro Soft, Inc., the second-generation family business she now leads in electronics contract manufacturing for defense, aviation, and transit.

She's the author of the #1 Amazon bestseller Dark, Dirty, Dangerous: Building the Vibrant Future of Manufacturing, the 2024 EY Entrepreneur Of The Year for Greater Philadelphia, and a board member at the Museum of the American Revolution, the Free Library of Philadelphia Foundation, and the African Women's Entrepreneurship Cooperative.

She's also spent her career making an argument we build these rooms around: entrepreneurship is a path to generational wealth, and access is what decides who gets to walk it.

On September 22, Karla joins us in Philadelphia for the Capital Activation Experience.

If you're a growth-stage B2B or B2G founder, this is not a conference. It's a small, curated room of founders, active funders, and ecosystem partners - built for the conversations that actually move something forward. You won't be pitched to. You'll be read.

📍 Philadelphia, PA
📅 Tuesday, September 22

The room is intentionally small. Save your spot: https://hubs.la/Q04sQ5GZ0