Teens To Compete For Thousands In Seed Funding To Launch Businesses At ‘Pitch Black’ Competition 3%
By Maxwell Evans25%
8/4/2026, 6:00:00 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 11 faulty reasoning types, including Halo Effect, Confirmation Bias, and Appeal to Emotion, with In-Group Bias as the most egregious example at 8.6% saturation with 33 hits. Analysis detected 267 faulty-reasoning hits from 384 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 8.5% and a BS Rank of 3% (27,925 of 28,596 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 97.70% of the article peer group.
WEST LOOP — Local teens will pitch the business ideas they’ve honed this summer while vying for thousands of dollars in investments as part of a local, Black-led nonprofit’s annual competition.
The Pitch Black 2026 competition takes place 4:30-7:30 p.m.
Thursday at Builders Vision, 167 N.
Green St. in West Loop.
Entrepreneurs aged 14-18 will pitch their “social impact” businesses to a panel of judges as they compete for a total of $16,500 in cash.
Top finishers will also receive one year of mentorship and support for their business through entrepreneurship nonprofit and event organizer Gray Matter Experience .
Tickets to the event are free, while attendees can choose to donate to the organization along with the ticket.
Light refreshments will be provided.
To register, click here .
Pitch Black competitors participated in Gray Matter Experience’s 6-week Accelerate summer program , which started in June.
Teens developed and refined a business plan with financials and market research through the program while attending professional development workshops.
Last year’s Pitch Black winner was BabelBridge, an app to hire interpreters , which received $7,500.
BabelBridge founder Hadassah Cross will return for this year’s competition as a judge .
Second place and $5,000 went to V3RZATILE , a clothing brand with an entrepreneurship nonprofit, while the Blossoming Sweets bakery came in third place and received $3,000.
Gray Matter Experience, founded in 2016 with an inaugural class of 20 students, aims to foster entrepreneurial skills in Black youth aged 14-24 while building a more unified Black business community in Chicago.
The nonprofit’s programs, including Accelerate, an 18-week introduction to business and leadership skills for high schoolers and a “Hustle Hacks” course for young adults with an existing business, are free of cost.
Participants are encouraged to develop business ideas that serve South and West side communities.
“We want to change that narrative by bringing attention to those neighborhoods and making resources, knowledge and capital more accessible,” founder Britney Robbins told DNAinfo in 2016 .
More than 2,700 young people have participated in Gray Matter Experience programs, according to the nonprofit.
Gray Matter Experience also worked with nonprofit True Star Media to host a youth vendors’ market at last month’s From the ‘Go Fest .
Speakers
1speaker7.3%attributed speech356writer words
Selected voice
100%flagged-word coverageBritney Robbins
28 attributed words100% of attributed speech29% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
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Analysis
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