2026

Despite evidence that female and minority founders deliver stronger returns on invested capital, they receive a disproportionately small share of early-stage venture funding, a disparity research consistently attributes to identity-based bias in the pitch evaluation process. Beat The Odds (BTO) is an AI-enabled, two-sided platform designed to remove identity markers from live investment pitches, allowing founders to present through an expressive avatar and modulated voice while investors evaluate on business merit alone. BTO demonstrates that real-time blind pitching is both technically feasible and experientially credible. The tool contributes to an emerging design practice of structurally mitigating bias in high-stakes evaluation contexts, with implications extending beyond venture capital to hiring, admissions, and institutional decision-making. This project is not a standalone effort. It is rooted in over two years of research conducted by Professor Rhea Alexander and the New School Entrepreneurial Lab (E-Lab), and built through a collaborative effort in which Rudy Abena Ofori, Yash Sonwaney, and Professor Rhea Alexander led the technology, administrative coordination, and research respectively.