Good news for Birmingham startups! The popular Bronze Valley Accelerator recently announced the five members of its Alabama Fall 2025 Cohort, and the Catalyze Birmingham Challenge officially opened its Round Three applications.

Read on to learn more about both programs.

Catalyze Birmingham Challenge opens Round Three applications

Mayor Woodfin and the City of Birmingham are excited to partner with Catalyze to promote career-focused learning. (Catalyze Birmingham)

In 2023, Birmingham became the first city in the country to host a regional version of the Catalyze Challenge, a nationwide grant program that has awarded $10M to more than 40 organizations. The regional grantmaking initiative—the Catalyze Birmingham Challenge—offers up to $250,000 to advance career-connected learning across the Birmingham region.

For the first time, the Catalyze Birmingham Challenge Round Three will introduce a track-based funding structure with two models:

Cross-Sector Partnerships — for local organizations to design new collaborative programs. Includes a funded planning period of up to six months.
High-Quality Expansions — for local or national groups with proven models to scale in Birmingham with community partners

“This round represents an exciting next step for Catalyze Birmingham. By opening the door to both bold, emerging ideas and tested programs ready for expansion, we’re ensuring that young people across the region have more meaningful opportunities to explore careers, connect with employers, and prepare for success.”
Carlisha Harris, Catalyze Birmingham Challenge Specialist

Interested startups can learn more and apply via https://www.catalyzechallenge.org/birmingham-challenge

Bronze Valley Investment Accelerator announces Alabama Fall 2025 cohort

Made possible by a partnership between Birmingham-based early-stage venture capital fund Bronze Valley and global startup accelerator gener8tor, the Bronze Valley Investment Accelerator supports under-resourced entrepreneurs by investing in five promising startups per cohort.

“The startups in this cohort exemplify truly unique AI-powered technology, with innovative use cases across athletics, data, higher education, medicine and mobility infrastructure. With more than 450 applications for this cohort, the program continues to become increasingly competitive and these founders have captured our attention with their vision, creativity and potential to make outsized impact.”
Neill S. Wright, President and CEO of Bronze Valley

This year’s Bronze Valley Investment Accelerator cohort includes:

Moonbase, an AI-driven platform that transforms dense research portfolios into a queryable knowledge base, building an essential intelligence layer for complex research organizations.
- Founder and CEO Anirudh Aditya | anirudh@tempospace.co
Tag! Fundraising, an AI-powered platform that connects youth sports teams with sustainable funding from local businesses and community donors.
- Founder and CEO Joy Moore | joy@teamtag.co
Neural Wave, a personalized AI that automates clinical workflows (reviewing labs, documents, coding tasks, etc) for doctors and other healthcare professionals.
- Founder and CEO Chayan Bhattacharyay | chayan@neuralwave.ai
Cache AI, a new AI-driven intelligence platform that evaluates athlete performance by standardizing commercial worth and integrating performance, social influence and market dynamics.
- Founder and CEO Kobi Wu | kobi@cache-ai.com
DeepCharge, an AI-powered platform that optimizes warehouse and logistics operations by utilizing smart-charging ecosystems and flagging at-risk devices hours before failure.
- Founder and CEO Yousof Naderi | naderi@deepcharge.io

In addition to a $100K investment from Bronze Valley, each participating company receives:

Access to the 12-week Bronze Valley Investment Accelerator program
Mentorship-based programming
Access to a national network of investors

“The most exciting part of this work is partnering with founders who are building ambitious companies from the ground up. This cohort is proof that great ideas and strong execution can come from anywhere—and these five startups are already showing impressive traction.”
Sierra Peña, Managing Director of the Bronze Valley Investment Accelerator Alabama, powered by gener8tor

Excited about these big moves in Birmingham’s tech ecosystem? Tag us @bhamnow to let us know!