Mobile, AL – Innovation Portal announces applications are now open for Portal Fund:RISE 2026, a 10-week entrepreneurship acceleration program that teaches early-stage founders to test and validate business ideas before betting everything on them. Running March 26 through May 28, 2026, the program provides up to $5,000 in funding, customer discovery training, and access to MoneyFEST—a funding education summit connecting entrepreneurs directly with lenders and investors.

The program addresses a critical gap in entrepreneurship: founders investing significant capital into untested ideas without validating customer demand. Portal Fund:RISE flips that script, teaching participants to discover what customers actually need through structured customer discovery interviews, market validation, and lean startup methodology.

“We see brilliant people pour their life savings into business ideas they’ve never validated with a single customer,” said Nick Hampton, Program Director at Innovation Portal. “Portal Fund:RISE teaches founders how to discover what customers actually want before making expensive mistakes. It’s almost like a crash course business degree—except you leave with money to try and start your business, not debt.”

Upon graduation, participants receive up to $5,000—to test assumptions, build minimum viable products, validate market demand, and hopefully launch a fully-formed company. The program includes participation in MoneyFEST on May 7, 2026, where founders learn what banks look for in loan applications, what investors expect, and how to position businesses for outside capital.

Since launching in 2023, Portal Fund:RISE has helped launch 15+ businesses with over 85% of participants from backgrounds underrepresented in traditional entrepreneurship. Ebonee Wells and Travis Wells came to the program with a staffing concept and launched Moving Forward Staffing Co with validated demand. Nathalie Sousa entered with scattered wellness ideas and now runs Hapüs Wellness with confidence and proven customer demand.

“We came in with an idea—this is what we want to do,” said Ebonee Wells, Co-Founder of Moving Forward Staffing Co. “They helped us formulate that into a marketable, market-ready entity.”

“Before Portal Fund:RISE, my ideas felt scattered, and I wasn’t sure where to begin,” said Nathalie Sousa, Founder of Hapüs Wellness. “The program helped me refine my vision and gave me the confidence to launch my business the right way. The support after the program has been incredible—any time I need help, they’re there. Most importantly, I feel part of a community, which means so much because entrepreneurship can often feel like a lonely road.”

While the program welcomes service-based businesses, it prioritizes ventures that can scale beyond the founder. “If you’re building a service business, we encourage you to think about how you can scale beyond yourself,” Hampton said. “Can you systematize your approach? License your methodology? Build technology that enables others to deliver your service? We want founders thinking about really interesting, unique ways to solve the problems they see in the world around them.”

The 2026 cohort is funded by a $50,000 grant from the Women’s Foundation of Alabama, supporting the program’s focus on creating economic mobility pathways for women entrepreneurs and founders from underrepresented backgrounds.

Applications are due February 20, 2026, with the cohort limited to 5-10 participants. The program serves Mobile, Baldwin, Washington, and Clark counties in Alabama. Interested entrepreneurs can apply at innovationport.al/rise or contact Nick Hampton at 251-202-7165 or nick@innovation-portal.com to schedule an interview.

About Innovation Portal: Innovation Portal is a nonprofit incubator and innovation hub accelerating startup growth in southwest Alabama and the central Gulf Coast. Innovation Portal provides a growth focused space and community for entrepreneurs, innovators, and creatives to connect. In addition to amazing work space, we provide targeted programming to encourage successful launch, development, and scaling of local ventures.

Find Innovation Portal at innovation-portal.com and on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.