Recognition

Detroit Elevate recognizes, celebrates, and supports businesses that’ve launched and maintained operations in Detroit, Hamtramck, and Highland Park. Starting a business is hard and to keep it open for more than three years is a testament to the strength and perseverance of our community’s small business owners. 

Pathways

Detroit Elevate provides pathways to capital and technical assistance for existing businesses, supporting their future operations, improvements, and expansion efforts. It also looks to drive new customers to these businesses so that scalability is sustainable.

Opening Doors

Detroit Elevate is not just another granting program – it opens doors to long-term capital such as lines of credit and loans. It provides the coaching, technical assistance, and visibility businesses need to propel them to the next level.

A second-stage small business is typically defined as a company that has moved beyond the startup phase and is now focused on growth, stability, and scalability. These businesses usually share a few common traits:

• Established operations: They’ve proven their business model, have a steady customer base, and consistent revenue.
• Key Employees: They have a core group of employees on payroll that support and maintain operations
• Growth-oriented: They’re looking to expand markets, increase efficiency, enhance customer experience, or invest in new products/services.
• Needs: Unlike startups, their main challenges aren’t just survival or proof of concept. Instead, they need support with scaling systems, hiring and retaining talent, accessing growth capital, expanding customer base, and developing management capacity.

A second-stage business isn’t a brand-new startup, but it’s also not a large corporation yet—it’s a growth-stage company that has moved past proving viability and is preparing for larger-scale impact for itself and in the community it serves.