By founders for founders 🤝

Beacon is a free, founder-led community dedicated to inspiring, building, and growing the next generation of West Virginia startups.

Our goal is to provide founders a white-glove experience through intimate dinners, practical webinars, and startup events that help builders learn fast and level up.

Below are a few ways to get involved:

👉 [Website]
👉 [LinkedIn]

6 Months of Beacon 🎉

Upcoming Events 📆

Every issue, we’ll drop startup events happening across West Virginia and the broader Appalachian region. Here’s what’s coming up:

• Vantage Ventures Validation Day 🤝 (In Person - Thursday, December 4)

  • Join Vantage Ventures at Reynolds Hall (REH 2000 Atrium) on December 4th at 5:00 pm to see how Vantage Ventures startups test assumptions about their business models and adapt based on real market feedback. (registration link)

• Beacon Webinar with Eldrick Millares 🛠️ (Virtual - Thursday, December 11th)

  • Eldrick will share the real story behind his journey building Illuminant, including their experience going through Y Combinator, raising their first round of capital, and assembling the foundational team that set the company’s trajectory. (registration link)

• Women & Tech Conference 🌄 (In Person - Friday, February 13th)

  • ​Women & Tech, hosted by TechConnect WV, serves to build community among women who work in or with technology, focusing on connection, inspiration, and opportunity. Technology as Opportunity, their 2026 theme, highlights how women across WV are using technology to create impact in their work, communities, and lives. (registration link)

Interested in attending a future Beacon event? Check out our events page here.

Let us know if there’s an event we should add in the future :)

Founder Spotlight 🚀

Every issue, we’ll spotlight a founder with West Virginia roots who’s building something ambitious.

Kipper Bush is a current resident of Morgantown, WV, and the co-founder & CTO of Realfinity.

Realfinity is rebuilding the mortgage industry's outdated infrastructure with AI-powered origination technology that cuts costs from $17,900 to $3,000 per loan. By automating underwriting, connecting directly to banking APIs, and providing instant access to capital markets, they're empowering local lenders and financial advisors to compete with giants like Rocket and Better. Their platform targets the underserved 16.5% of the $1.3 trillion purchase mortgage market, the "Mom and Pop" lenders, and new market entrants who lack modern infrastructure.

Founded by the team that built and exited a top-25 U.S. lender, Realfinity has already originated $150M+ in loans with 83 active partners. Rather than competing for retail traffic, they're consolidating the fragmented long tail of mortgage originators into one AI-native platform. The team leverages its deep industry expertise to deliver what smaller players desperately need: Wall Street pricing, automated workflows, and the ability to scale without increasing headcount proportionally.

👉 Follow their journey on LinkedIn.

Their team also recently added Max Spolaor, a WVU adjunct physics professor, as their AI Principal Developer, and is seeking local backend and frontend developers to build out their Morgantown-based development team!

In The Trenches 🛠️

Last month, we kicked off our first webinar with Ash Panchang, a Harvard Business School alum and investor at Bling Capital, a seed-stage venture firm with over $270M raised and investments in companies like Palantir, Airtable, and Square.

Ash got in the trenches with founders and shared what early-stage investors actually look for, breaking down the fundamentals of raising your first round with real, tangible advice.

Our next “In the Trenches” session is on December 11th with Eldrick Millares. If you want honest conversations about what it’s really like to build as a founder, you won’t want to miss this.