Spring 2025 Agora
Venture Challenge

Apply for a chance to compete in our spring venture challenge, where you’ll be pitching your startup in front of DC’s top investors, founders, and ecosystem leaders. The winner walks away with a $10,000 cash prize. All applications are reviewed by our investor committee, and all are eligible for additional cash and in-kind prizes.

  • Gender Identity: Must self-identify as either female or non-binary.

    Location: Must be based in DC, Maryland, or Virginia.

    Role & Equity: Must be a founder with at least 25% equity stake and hold a C-suite executive position in the company they are representing.

    Traction: Must be past “idea stage” with revenue, active users or other performance metric to signal early product market fit. Applicant founder must be, with some limited exceptions, working full time on their venture.

    Venture-Ready Scale: Applicant’s company should demonstrate the potential for venture-scale growth, indicating a capacity for rapid expansion and significant market impact. (Note: Founders of consultancies or other businesses that do not meet this criteria are welcome to reach out to explore other paths for involvement).

    Business Type: The company must be incorporated as a for-profit entity.

  • Finalists are selected by our investor committee. In order to be eligible to win, finalists must pitch live to our community the evening of the showcase in downtown DC. Our investor committee will then decide on the ultimate winner.

  • Your application will be reviewed by the Agora team for completeness and eligibility. If you meet our eligibility criteria, your application will then be reviewed by at least 2 members of our investor committee. The most promising companies will be discussed live with our full investor committee, which will then select finalists to pitch.

  • One winner will receive a $10,000 check, awarded as a non-dilutive grant.

Missed the deadline? Learn more about our other programs and apply to join our community here.

  • "Incredible presentations! Higher quality pitches than I am used to seeing in an event like this. Better than even the growth pitches I receive."

     –Braden Snyder, Partner at Updata


  • "The Venture Challenge was instrumental in kicking us into gear to submit the application for Agora and helping us package that first narrative. The Showcase was the first time that we built the narrative around the company. It was a low stakes way to get the story out and practice our pitch. It was our first validation point."

    – Jessie Anderson, Co-Founder and CTO at Lumora