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the fourth quarter of 2022, Resilia — a “tech for good” company founded by Hammond native Sevetri Wilson — announced that it had raised $35 million in its Series B funding round. It is the largest raise ever achieved for a solo Black female-founded technology company.

The raise brings Resilia’s capital up over $50 million — an impressive achievement for any company, but for a company led by a Black woman, from Louisiana, with a limited tech background, it’s nothing short of groundbreaking.

It’s a win Wilson says adds to the achievements of 2021’s big exits — including TurboSquid, Levelset and Lucid, the last being Louisiana’s first “unicorn” (a startup valued at over $1 billion) — in bringing more venture capital attention to the state. The hope is that her success, however, will also encourage VCs to look at founders who don’t fit the traditional mold.

Diversity, equity and inclusion have long been at the heart of Wilson’s work. With Resilia, she said, in addition to counting large, national organizations like Goldman Sachs and United Way as clients, “we are able to support grassroots organizations, particularly BIPOC-led organizations and women-led organizations and delivering them the needed resources to support work their day-to-day operations and build capacity inside of their organizations.”

Through two books and a podcast, Wilson has been passionate about sharing her story — from her early days straight out of college bootstrapping her first company into a seven-figure success story, to her continual success with Resilia. Recently, she sat down with Biz New

Orleans to share some of the things she’s learned about raising funds and her thoughts on how we create more success stories like hers.

When was your first entrepreneurial experience?

When I got to college, I was actually a journalism major. I thought I would go into print journalism and broadcast. I had started an online newspaper called B-NOW (Black News Our Way) that essentially bought students from LSU and Southern University together to write about the things that were happening on both of our campuses. It was really B-NOW that taught me the foundation of how to build a team. I had to get a website and a designer, and I basically wrangled in my college friends to do these things. They created my first logo, my first website. My professor at the time, Dr. Leonard Moore gave me the first 100 bucks to go start my LLC. That really sparked my entrepreneurial journey, and I never looked back from that point.

So from journalism, you moved into helping nonprofits.

With my first company, Solid Ground Innovations, we were consultants. We provided technical assistance and capacity support, like boots on the ground to nonprofits. Everything from board management, to fundraising, to managing budgets and projects, to delivering just basic consultations. We now deliver that through Resilia’s platform as a software solution. Now everything is built into the platform, which organizations can access on demand. Things like webinars, trainings, templates — they can access a nonprofit coach that can do an analysis of their grants.

Criticism and fear are a reality of building and growing a business. What are the lessons you’ve learned on that front?

When I started Solid Ground Innovations in 2009, I was 22 — a young, Black woman straight out of college, so I faced a ton of hurdles with trying to venture into business and do business with individuals who were much older and more experienced than me. But I was able to position myself and offer my expertise in what I felt they needed as it related to their marketing and advertising. That’s how I got my start. But it definitely didn’t come without hurdles and aspects where most people may have not moved forward.

Then, when I got into tech with Resilia in 2017, there came other challenges, specifically raising capital for a company that would become a venture-backed tech startup. I also faced the challenge of coming from the South. With SGI, all my clients were in the South, so it didn’t matter. Coming into tech and being from the South actually presented itself as a disadvantage.

We are definitely in a region that is not yet known as a tech hub among big VCs. How did you overcome that?

If there isn’t a way you have to make a way. I started with my resources here in Louisiana. I raised the first $400,000 to launch Resilia to the public with the support of local businesspeople in Louisiana, some here in New Orleans, and Baton Rouge. And then when I went to raise $2 million, which was our seed round, I knew I was going to go outside of Louisiana, because we just didn’t have the venture support here. The majority of the money for Resilia actually came from outside of Louisiana. I started in Atlanta and Chattanooga, Tennessee, and then went to California, where I was able to secure our largest seed investor. Our series B was then led by firms out of Atlanta, New York and Toronto. It definitely required me to expand my network

If you look at my investors today, I’m actually their first, and currently only New Orleans investment. If I prove successful, however, I won’t be their last, and then more investors will start looking at Louisiana.

How did you find these investors?

I’ll share one story with you. Early on I participated in IDEA Village’s NOEW pitch competition and I ended up losing. But in doing so, I had the opportunity to meet and connect with partners and investors from TPG Capital, who, at the time, were funding the winner of the pitch competition’s award.

After I lost, instead of just being defeated and moving on to the next thing, I followed up with those individuals that were supporting me in my pitch practice. I emailed them and basically said, “Sorry, everyone, we didn’t bring home first place. However, I want to just thank you for spending time with me.” One of the partners, Tim Millikin, responded, and he’s based out in San Francisco. He said, “Oh, I thought you had a really good company. If you’re ever out in the Bay Area, look me up.”

So later, when I was trying to raise capital for my seed round and really thinking that I was about to run out of gas and that this was it, I decided to take one more trip to San Francisco for a conference where I had mapped out some investors that I wanted to meet and connect with. I remembered that email and I reached out to Tim, and I said, “I’ll be in San Francisco. Do you have time?”

Now if you know Millikin, he does billiondollar buyouts, like, why would you have time for a company at seed stage? But he responded. We ended up meeting for lunch, and he invested an angel check into my seed round. That capital in his name actually turned around my entire round, and I was able to successfully raise the rest of the $2 million from his investment, and that connection.

One of my investors — an all women-led fund called the Jump Fund in Chattanooga — found me after Kristina Montague, one of the fund’s partners, read about Resilia in a local magazine in Atlanta. Ironically, she was from Shreveport, Louisiana, and one of her partners went to LSU. [Montague] reached out to me on LinkedIn, and they ended up investing. When I went to Chattanooga later for a meeting they had put together, I happened to sit next to a partner at Mucker Capital, who was their only woman partner. She reached out to me and introduced me to her other partners, and they loved the company. They ended up becoming our biggest seed investor.

What I’m saying is, it’s about immersing yourself in the space, immersing yourself in the community. Because if you do that, you’ll begin to understand who the players are, what you need to know, who’s actually deploying capital.

A founder’s pitch is so important. What advice would you offer for making sure it’s impactful?

The thing about pitching is that the more you do it, the better you get at it. When I was going through Idea Village, I perfected what is now the framework of the pitch that I give today. Although I didn’t win that pitch, it was really a good pitch, I must say. And I say that because I remember my very first pitch, and it wasn’t really good.

What made that pitch bad, and the Idea Village pitch good?

In the first pitch I had ever done I came in with a pitch in my head and in that instance, we got feedback right before we went to pitch. I was then trying to synthesize so much information, so much feedback from all these different people and change my pitch on the fly that I just bombed it. I should have just stuck to the pitch that I came in with. That’s a lesson that I would tell other founders — have high conviction on what you know and deliver that.

In pitch competitions you have typically three minutes, so you have to be concise, you have to have quick details on what you’re selling, your market size, your competitors and why your team is the team to execute it. That’s also the same way you want to approach things when you meet someone for the first time. You might not have an opportunity to have an entire 30-minute conversation with someone about what you do. If you have three minutes of someone’s time, make sure that you’re very precise about what you’re presenting to them.

What’s the funding landscape like in New Orleans right now?

There’s way more capital today than there was before. Even the prize for the NOEW pitch was $400,000 last year — it was $100,000 when I pitched. Now you have investors who have had a couple of wins, and so they invest more. Some of these same people around the table that have had these wins, they’re now looking at other startups that they can put money into. You also now have funders who are not in Louisiana that are looking at Louisiana- and New Orleans-based companies.

Then there are also people who have created funds. You have Mrs. Benson, she’s created Benson Capital, you have Callais Capital, you have this new U.S. Treasury money that’s flowing down to Louisiana that is creating new funds that will deploy money. You have that $10 million that Tulane is doing. There’s a lot going on.

Both the pandemic and things like the Black Lives Matter movement have created opportunities for Resilia and its customers. Can you talk about that?

In New Orleans we had the unfortunate reality of going through Hurricane Katrina, and we saw the tons of money from philanthropic organizations that poured into the city afterward. The Kellogg Foundation still has a huge presence here. Many philanthropists stepped up and created funds to support organizations on the ground in New Orleans.

Generally speaking, when a pandemic or something like that happens, philanthropy steps up to engage in some form or fashion. With Black Lives Matter and the death of George Floyd, something similar happened with corporations dedicating money to Black-led efforts. As such, there was no better time for organizations to come online and begin to digitize a lot of their framework. We were able to really be a partner to many organizations who were trying to navigate during that time.

If you are a Fidelity, which is one of our customers, Fidelity is the largest corporate funder in the world, most people don’t know that. They support hundreds, maybe thousands of nonprofit organizations. They have their foundations, their corporate and ESG programs (environmental, social or governance) that fund these organizations for projects. They utilize Resilia as a platform to support not only that funding, but those specific organizations that they’re working with. We are kind of the connective tissue, but we’re also the capacity support to ensure those projects are successful.

A big part of any company’s success is making the right hires. As a tech company, are you finding the people you need here?

Hiring is absolutely critical. When I talk to other New Orleans founders, often the topic of our discussion is talent. With companies like Lucid and Levelset exiting, that also creates individuals who’ve worked inside of startups that have scaled and then had a liquidity event. Now those individuals can also be hired at other places and do it again. Without that type of movement, it’s very hard to find experienced talent. That’s why creating a booming tech ecosystem here that can do that is important to retain companies in New Orleans.

We have an office here in New Orleans, one in New York, and we also have a pod in Mexico City, but I have made an intentional effort to hire people in Louisiana, in New Orleans. With such a rise in remote work, you can hire people from anywhere, but if you want to move the economy here, the people that you’re giving these highpaying jobs to need to actually live in the city that you’re living. I’m very thoughtful about that and I think that’s because I’m here in New Orleans. I know the ups and downs that we have.

I understand that tourism has been the leading industry forever, but tech provides an opportunity for people to make a great living, for them to be a part of scaling and growing companies. And when those companies exit, these individuals start their own companies, and they build, and they hire. These are the people that get to sponsor the Little League teams, and they put more money back into nonprofits, into schools.

There are a lot of colleges and universities running tech programs now. Have these been helpful to you? How have you found people?

We definitely lean on the universities, particularly for some of our entry level roles. We have used Tulane and Loyola as a hub of recruitment here in New Orleans. There’s also a company called Torsh that is taking people from the tourism industry and training them to get roles in tech, particularly sales roles, because it’s transferable skills.

Let’s switch gears a little bit. What are you doing with all this money for Resilia? What are the plans moving forward?

We’re focused on scaling the company, which means we’re doubling down on ensuring that we have the capacity across our departments. We added about 50 people between October and the beginning of the year to ensure that we have the bandwidth to go after the market opportunity in front of us. We’re at 111 employees right now and we’ll probably land at around 143 by the end of the year.

We’re also deepening our depth of our product. Something that we’re really excited about is launching payments and donations on the platform. Today, nonprofits can raise money on the platform, but not through Resilia. This is one of the things that we raised our series B to do.

I recently traveled to Austin and saw how a booming tech industry has completely transformed things. Do you ever see something like that happening here?

I always joke with my friends who live in Austin, that Austin stole New Orleans’ music, that part of the culture of New Orleans that gives Austin its flavor. But then Austin had the opportunity to launch one of the biggest success stories ever in tech with Dell. That was the launch pad of tech in Austin.

Austin also has a lot of investment firms. But I definitely think that Austin is probably the closest resemblance of what New Orleans could do. Miami has also become more of a tech bed, but still not like Austin. South Atlanta has also made headways.

New Orleans has such a dramatic wealth gap, and we could definitely be so much stronger on diversity, equity and inclusion — all things you’re passionate about. How do we create a future that has more people like you?

I do think it’s a component of education, but also opportunity. When I think about Resilia, and our success, it also required someone to open a door for me, right? I think that we have to ensure that we’re opening more doors for individuals that don’t necessarily come from the places that we come from, or don’t live in our neighborhoods. I think we have too much of not only a wealth gap, but a class gap. We have to ensure that we’re increasing opportunities for individuals all across the city … whether that’s shadowing, exposing them to stem and tech, helping them maneuver on to college, and then making sure they’re successful there.

When I think about my journey, I come from a small town. I didn’t know anyone. My mother was assistant manager at Kmart. She made $30,000 a year raising four kids. But when I matriculated to high school, I was in the band and my band teacher was so influential on my life. When I went to apply for scholarships, she wrote the most genuine and thoughtful referrals for me, and I ended up winning hundreds of thousands in scholarships for college — not because I had a 4.0, not because I was a top 10 student because I wasn’t, but because I was involved in high school and my teachers and counselors believed in me. They doubled down on me.

And then I went off to college, and I found organizations like student support services, and I found groups that I became a part of, and I would go talk to my professors and they would help me, they would connect me with people. One of my professors gave me the $100 to start my first LLC at 19. It truly was like this tribe of people who invested in me over time. That continued after I got out of college, and it continues now in my career.

I would say that if everyone you talk to on a daily basis is in your same class, you’re definitely not contributing to moving New Orleans ahead.

If an entrepreneur caught you in an elevator and asked you for advice to help them succeed, what would you say?

I would tell them don’t give up too soon. There’s a thing called fail fast. Don’t fail so fast that you don’t really push yourself to see what you can ultimately achieve, what you can ultimately create. And in doing that, make sure you put the right people around you, people with expertise, experience, the mentorship that can support you. ■