Ammons reacts to winning the Rise of the Rest competition in Birmingham, securing $100,000 in funding for her company, Mixtroz.

Ashlee Ammons’ journey took her from Cleveland to New York City to Nashville and, finally, to Birmingham in 2018, when Mixtroz – an event management software company – became a part of Innovation Depot’s Velocity Accelerator. Since then, the tech startup won the Rise of the Rest pitch competition and went on to close a $1 million round of funding, making she and her cofounder and mother Kerry Schrader only the 37th and 38th Black females to ever close such a round. This is how Ammons got to Birmingham, and why she has stayed.

What attracted me to Birmingham was the city’s position on who could be an entrepreneur – and the answer to that is everyone. I felt it to be a more inclusive environment in the tech space.

As a tech founder, I look at how far my funds would have gone in New York City compared to how far they’ve gone in Birmingham, and you can’t compare the two. Living in Birmingham affords you a level of comfort that other metros don’t. It’s interesting to be here at this stage where Birmingham is figuring out what kind of city it wants to be – I feel like I am part of that conversation, which is pretty cool.

I’ve lived in such a big city before, and Birmingham reminds me of Cheers – everyone knows your name. I feel that back when we were out and about [pre-COVID], it was rare to go somewhere and not know somebody, from Target to a coffee shop to wherever. If you are a hustler, you can get networked into the city extremely fast and become one degree of separation from anyone you need to be connected to in Birmingham.

Birmingham is a city that gave us a chance. The Birmingham ecosystem let us actually explore this business idea and actually turn it into some semblance of an actual business. Birmingham will always have quite a spot in our [Mixtroz’s] story, no matter which way the journey goes. Birmingham gave us a chance and believed we could do this; I always tell people, part of your job as an entrepreneur is to find where your people are – and Birmingham is where our people are.

As told to Rachel Burchfield