She found her manufacturer, mentor, and investor in one person.

Rajia Abdelaziz, Founder and CEO of invisaWear, found her manufacturing partner, her mentor and her lead investor in the same person.

She didn’t meet him at a Silicon Valley pitch event. She met him through EforAll, a regional accelerator that matched her with a local mentor. He helped build her product as her manufacturer, guided her as her mentor, and later wrote her first big check as her investor, once he understood what she was building and why it mattered. One regional relationship created something a cold pitch to a coastal VC couldn't: conviction built through working together.

Last week was about who’s in the room when you pitch. Rajia’s story is the next layer of that.

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