We meet entrepreneurs where they are
Since 2017, BII has deployed $18 million across New England through flexible debt and equity financing to businesses, cooperatives, and real estate projects.
Directly from Our Portfolio
Democracy Brewing
When BII invested in Democracy Brewing, they were a small worker-owned start up brewery with a tasting in South Boston. Today they continue their worker owned model and have a tap room and restaurant in Downtown Boston.
East Boston Neighborhood Trust
East Boston Neighborhood Trust is a real estate project in East Boston, Mass. that created a Mixed-Income Neighborhood Trust (MINT) to acquire and manage 114 units of affordable and workforce housing for persons with below median income at a time when housing stabilization is desperately needed in the City’s most at risk districts for displacement.
Eco Auto
Husband and wife, Al and Michelle Salas, founded Eco Auto in 2022 to address the growing demand for consumers wanting to enter the Electric Vehicle market, but who were deterred by the high barriers to ownership. Eco Auto is committed to lowering the high costs associated with purchasing and owning Electric Vehicles (EV) and plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEV), by carrying a diverse inventory of certified pre-owned vehicles, affordably installing at home charging stations, and helping new buyers navigate current local and federal rebates and incentives available to electric vehicles drivers. Fund II made an investment in EcoAuto in 2024…
Eduporium
Eduporium is an all-inclusive shopping solution to 21st century schools. They are a distribution source and solution provider for Ed-Tech companies to get vetted instructional tools and IT services into schools with the objective of narrowing the digital divide. Eduporium provides a technology solution for STEM/STEAM, Makerspace needs. Additionally, they provide the support educators need to be successful in the adoption of these new technologies.
El Planeta
El Planeta is an integrated Latinx news company producing content and events relevant to the Latinx community in Massachusetts and beyond. It reaches more than 200,000 people per week through print, television and digital media. It became a crucial community resource during the COVID-19 pandemic, forging new partnerships and growing its readership to 500,000. With more than 10 countries represented on its staff, El Planeta is an essential link between organizations, companies and government, and the Latinx community, and a key source of news coverage of underrepresented communities.
EmVision Productions
EmVision Productions creates video content that helps clients communicate their organization’s social impact. Co-founder Tariana V. Little holds a DrPH from Harvard, focusing on communications and innovation and this expertise informs their Social Impact Storytelling™ framework. Their clients include nonprofits, social enterprises, government agencies, and corporations.
Five Start Plating
Five Start Plating (FSP) provides metal finishing services (anodizing, hard coat, chromate conversion, zinc plating and powder coating) to commercial sheet metal fabricators and machine shops serving a variety of industries including medical, industrial, telecommunications, electronics, defense /aerospace and food services. It is located in Lawrence, and provides competitive job opportunities to the local community.
florrent
florrent is a deep-tech company innovating to design and build the next generation of high energy density ultracapacitors that will stabilize electrical grids and address critical bottlenecks for the adoption of renewable energies, electric vehicles and net-zero buildings. Its ultracapacitors are manufactured in Western Massachusetts from abundant and regenerative biomass, grown domestically in the U.S. by Black and Indigenous farmers.
Futuro Media Group
Description: Futuro Media Group creates multimedia content for and about underrepresented communities in an increasingly diverse world. Founder Maria Hinojosa is an award-winning news anchor and reporter who has covered America’s untold stories for over two decades.
Hillside Harvest
Hillside Harvest is a Caribbean-American natural condiment brand that sells at regional grocery stores, local farmers markets, direct-to-consumer on their website, and even at Fenway Park! Hillside Harvest has developed three hot sauce flavors and two Jamaican jerk marinades. Founder Kamaal Jarrett’s vision was to create a brand that would bring the Caribbean flavors of his heritage out of the specialty international markets and into mainstream supermarket aisles.
Kingstown Green Co-op
Kingstown Green Inc. is a small worker-owned manufacturing co-op located in Hartford, CT, that produces eco-friendly, handcrafted caskets that are solid wood and biodegradable. Kingstown Green is a member of the Green Burial Council, a non-profit organization approved by the Federal Trade Commission to regulate the green sector of the funeral industry. The caskets have received the highest rating given by the Green Burial Council.
MathTalk
MathTalk is a community-focused education technology public benefit corporation based in Cambridge, Mass. Using playful installations, technology and books, MathTalk promotes early math and language development among children. It uses the latest scientific research on cognitive development and is rooted in the cultures of local communities of color.
MA Community Purchasing Alliance
Community Purchasing Alliance (MA CPA) is a purchasing cooperative that leverages the buying power of institutions to negotiate and drive down costs of vendors and service providers, while steering spending to diverse vendors using sustainable practices for their members. Their members consists of faith based institutions, schools, affordable housing, and other nonprofits.
Meetcaregivers, Inc.
Meetcaregivers connects families seeking at home care providers with pre-screed and qualified caregivers using technology enabled services to make the process safe and easy for families and clinicians. Meetcaregivers’ technology uses a match feature algorithm to ensure the right fit for client and clinicians. BII has made an investment in Meetcaregivers out of both Fund I and Fund II.
Nuevo Dia ADHC
Nuevo Día is a Latino- and woman-owned facility that seeks to help low-income seniors and disabled people in Boston remain as independent and as healthy as possible in a culturally competent environment. The vision of this organization is to be the leading Adult Day Health program serving the Latino community in Greater Boston.
Quality Interactions
Quality Interactions is an e-learning platform that provides cultural competency training for healthcare professionals to decrease health disparities. It helps healthcare providers improve the quality of patient care by helping them to recognize and address unconscious bias. Their platform enables providers to communicate effectively with patients of all cultural backgrounds, including people of color, immigrants, people whose first language is not English, and LGBTQI+ patients, as well as those who are uninsured.
Sign-Speak
Sign-Speak is an innovative technology company seeking to bridge the communication divide for the 48 million Deaf and Hard of Hearing (D/HH) individuals in the United States. Its technology tracks American Sign Language (ASL) users as they sign with a camera on a computing device and transcribes and translates in real-time to facilitate conversation with someone who only speaks English. This technology can also translate and transcribe back into ASL. The Sign-Speak founding team includes a deaf software engineer and has developed solutions for websites, in-person contact, and automated environments.
Somerville Community Corporation
Somerville Community Corporation offers services and leads community organizing that support low- and moderate- income residents to increase economic sustainability and civic participation. SCC partners with local developers, foundations, lenders, the City of Somerville, and community organizations, serving as a nexus for multi-stakeholder relationships.
Solomon Group
Is a strategic communications and consulting firm working with public and private initiatives that uses data to market clean energy programs to disadvantaged communities. Given their experience in the space, Solomon Group can provide data-driven insights on sub-segments of the population, with particular emphasis on historically disadvantaged communities.
Sunwealth
Sunwealth is a clean energy investment firm dedicated to finance high-performing commercial solar projects through the sale of investment products to accredited investors. Their goal is to accelerate capital into communities underserved by traditional solar financing. BII has made several investments in Sunwealth over the years out of the LLC, Fund I and Fund II.
Synergy Contracting, Inc
Synergy Contracting (Synergy) is a fully bonded, unionized, Latina, women-owned construction company specializing in Environmental Remediation, Demolition, and Cleaning Construction Services, headquartered in Boston, MA. In addition to the services provided, they offer accelerator programs to build knowledge and education in the construction space.
The Lazu Group
At the time of BII’s original investment, The LAZU Group was a technology-enabled DEI services firm that offers strategies for product development, marketing, talent recruitment and retention, and community engagement. They used a motivational-based approach designed with the principles of community organizing, traditional DEI, and mental health, to help people create better personal and professional connections, ultimately resulting in happier individuals and healthier organizations. The Lazu Group closed its line of credit with BII in 2025. The Lazu Group is an exited portfolio company from Fund I.
Thrive!
Thrive! is a SaaS platform that uses a proprietary algorithm to assess government performance on reducing racial disparities. They sell into municipalities and conduct an initial equity audit, using an algorithm that tracks spending on certain interventions by agency. Then they provide recommendations, based on their findings, that will improve the lives of BIPOC people.
TrillFit
Winner of Best of Boston, 2021, 2020, 2018 is a purpose-driven wellness business that is changing the face of boutique fitness. With the objective of seeing underrepresented communities become the face of health they are intentionally catering to the soon-to-be “new majority” by training and contracting with instructors that are also reflective of inner-city communities.
Valley Home Insulation
Valley Home Insulation offers residential insulation and weatherization services in Lawrence and the surrounding Merrimack Valley. Following the 2018 gas explosions, Columbia Gas offered 100% reimbursement for insulation and weatherization services on all homes it serves in the Merrimack Valley through the end of 2020. VHI leverages cultural competency and community presence to provide these services to low- and moderate-income residents of this region.
Waku
Waku is a gut healthy drink that is inspired on an ancestral recipe, “horchata lojana”, created in the Andes Mountains. Waku’s raw ingredients are sourced from indigenous farmers, bottled in New Hampshire and distributed in the Northeast Region of the United States.
Wash Cycle Laundry
WashyCycle is a commercial laundry company with locations in Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington DC, committed to creating living-wage jobs and second chances for people overcoming histories of incarceration,homelessness, substance use, long-term unemployment, use of public benefits, and more.
Join Us in Building a
Just and Sustainable Economy
Invest in BII Fund II and support the growth of enterprises, building a more equitable future.