Hutch, a digital services incubator that provides minorities and women entrepreneurs with a blueprint for building successful, government-focused digital services firms, is excited to introduce its Class of 2024. This new cohort of eight companies will begin its intensive 24-month program with the goal of delivering digital transformation to government. 

Established by Fearless in 2019, Hutch equips digital services entrepreneurs with the tools, mentorship, and peer-to-peer support needed to have a lasting impact on government clients and communities. The entrepreneurs selected to join Hutch’s program will learn skills in strategy, branding, contracting and business development through one-on-one coaching, mentorship, and intensive, interactive sessions.

Hutch’s goal is to build an ecosystem of successful and impactful digital services firms that transform the way government serves its people, and lift up those who have been traditionally left out of the tech space.

“The resources that Hutch has provided to Ey3 helped position our company to win contracts. From introducing us to a 8a coach to providing a financial advisory team that helped us with compliance and competitive pricing, as well as our partnership with fellow Hutch companies has made our company stronger and more competitive in government contracting. In Hutch we have a hub that we can come to for help, encouragement, motivation, and counseling as we scale,” shared Hutch alumni founder Terry Bazemore, Jr, COO of EY3, a cyber security and systems engineering consulting company based in Prince George’s County, MD. 

The following companies are included in the new cohort:

• BlueMeta Technology – Led by Malik Warren, BlueMeta provides custom software solutions, data collection, data cleaning, data visualization, cloud architecture, and cloud delivery services
• Boostaro LLC – Boostaro, founded by Snehal Talati, focuses on organizational change and transformation to help companies understand economies of scale and to be more agile
• CloudLeap Technologies, LLC – With expertise in Big Data & Analytics, Machine Learning (ML), Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), CloudLeap, led by Prashant Shah, analyzes vast amounts of data to help organizations make strategic decisions
• Flamelit Consulting, LLC – A data science consultancy led by Thomas Roderick, Flamelit identifies and mitigate damaging system anomalies and improves operational efficiency through quantitative data models
• Lithe Solutions Inc – Founded by Padma Gourineni, Lithe Solutions provides System Integration, Agile Development and Program & Project Support Services
• Mebane Design Studio – Led by Brandi Mebane, Mebane Design Studio is a multidisciplinary design studio that uses design and creative visual solutions to help traditionally underestimated people, ideas, and causes to grow
• Pendulum Tyde LLC – Pendulum Tyde, co-founded by Jeffrey Coleman and Alton Bell, delivers knowledge-based services in Records Management, to help organizations transition to a paperless environment
• Tallycode LLC – Tallycode is a Managed Services IT firm with experience in System Modernization, Digital Transformation, Automation, IT Infrastructure Support, Cyber Security, Agile Software Development, and Audio Visual Solutions, founded by Ted Taliaferro

“It’s common for companies to make some rookie mistakes in the beginning. I knew Hutch would be a lot of work and commitment, but I also felt it would be beneficial, a sort of guardrails for me to kind of keep going in the right direction,” said Jeffrey Coleman, Pendulum Tyde President and a member of the Hutch class of 2024.

With this new cohort, Hutch has 28 companies in its portfolio including 13 alumni companies that have all completed the program. Most Hutch alumni founders were engaged in contracting or subcontracting work before graduating from the program. 

Julie Meloni, Hutch Advisory Board Member and Vice President-Digital Solutions for Pluribus Digital shares, “Building a business and breaking into civic technology is no easy task. To truly affect changes in outcomes for customers, we need a breadth and depth of voices and experiences among the teams researching, designing, developing, and deploying digital services.  I am thrilled that Hutch continues to shepherd along this path some of the best and brightest this industry has to offer and can’t wait to see what the latest cohort brings to bear.”  

At the end of 2022, Hutch was awarded a grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) to help build capacity to scale, growing 45 digital services firms by 2025, and to expand and roll-out new efforts to connect mentors, digital services experts, and government administrators to accelerate innovation and transformation within federal agencies.