In September 2016, Uncharted Play, a company that makes energy-generating products, raised $7 million in a series A financing round and became the 13th company with a black female founder to raise more than $1 million in outside investment.
Uncharted Play, founded in 2011, makes systems that can harness renewable energy from motion to power infrastructure or consumer goods. For instance, the first product, a soccer ball, contained technology that captured energy as it rolled and transferred it to an internal battery.
While the company started with two play-focused products — one being the soccer ball and the other a jump rope, which also transferred rotational energy to a battery — it’s since moved onto bigger solutions, like integrating its proprietary technology into speed bumps, sidewalks and more. The goal is to make sustainable energy accessible to all, especially those who live off the grid.
Today, toward her mission of giving individuals control over their futures, Uncharted Play invests heavily in the Harlem community and has even set up a nonprofit, the Harlem Tech Fund, with the aim of growing the tech talent pool in the neighborhood.
Someday, Matthews says she hopes Uncharted Play will become Harlem’s first billion-dollar tech company. Here’s what she’s learned throughout her entrepreneurial journey so far.
What have you learned about growth while doing good?
Growing up, I always had an interest in invention and human behavior, and doing things that combine the two things together. As it turns out, to do that sustainably and at scale, you have to build a business. You have to understand what it means to organize people and ideas and push them forward in a structured manner. And so for me, the goal of business is to create a methodology and a way of thinking about sustainable, scalable impact. I think that’s what’s made it easier for me to make some of the hard decisions, where you have to balance your soul with the business world. I know the goal isn’t just to do business — it’s to do something with the business in an authentic way.
Read the entire interview here.
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