Company Updates

Dell Joins the Startup America Partnership and StartUp Britain to Support New and Growing Businesses

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Michael Dell is one of America’s iconic entrepreneurs and his spirit inspires us to support entrepreneurs and growing businesses around the world.

Earlier today, the Startup America Partnership announced that Michael is joining their founding board and that Dell Inc will be one of their first sponsors. We’re proud join this alliance of major corporations, funders, service providers, mentors and advisors working to dramatically increase the prevalence and success of high-growth enterprises in the U.S.

In addition to our financial support of the alliance itself, and our founder’s strategic guidance to the Partnership, Dell will provide special offers and resources to qualified Startup America members in order to help them leverage the best IT solutions for their growth.

And Dell’s support for entrepreneurs goes beyond America. We are also sponsoring the StartUp Britain campaign launched on 28th March 2011 to celebrate, inspire and accelerate enterprise in the UK. Throughout August and September, the StartUp Britain campaign team will travel on a bus, complete with experts, mentors, entrepreneurs and small business authors, to 14 locations across the country to encourage budding entrepreneurs in all areas of Britain to start-up their own businesses.

Both StartUp sponsorships will help amplify and complement our Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network (DWEN) and Women Powering Business initiatives that have earned kudos for connecting with women business leaders. And during our search for America’s Favorite Small Business, we hope to find more growing businesses that might benefit from StartUp America’s work to help young companies grow and create jobs.

We’re not stopping there, though! There’s more to come as we gear up to recognize early-stage, fast-growth companies using technology to grow their businesses around the globe.

In the meantime, here’s a video of Scott Case, CEO of Startup America at Launch Silicon Valley 2011 explaining what the Partnership is and why it’s so important:

About the Author: Laura Pevehouse

Laura Pevehouse was profiled as one of five “social media mavens” in the March 2009 issue of Austin Woman Magazine and named an AdWeek’s TweetFreak Five to Follow. She has been part of the Dell organization for more than 15 years in various corporate communications, employee communications, public relations, community affairs, marketing, branding, social media and online communication roles. From 2014-2018, Laura was Chief Blogger/Editor-in-Chief for Direct2DellEMC and Direct2Dell, Dell’s official corporate blog that she help launch in 2007. She is now a member of the Dell Technologies Chairman Communications team. Earlier in her Dell career she focused on Global Commercial Channels and US Small and Medium Business public relations as part of the Global Communications team. Prior to that, she was responsible for global strategy in social media and community management, as well as marcom landing pages, as a member of Dell’s Global SMB Marketing, Brand and Creative team. When she was part of Dell’s Global Online group, Laura provided internal consulting that integrated online and social media opportunities with a focus on Corporate Communications and Investor Relations. She managed the home page of Dell.com, one of the top 500 global web sites in Alexa traffic rank, and first brought web feeds and podcasts to the ecommerce site. In her spare time she led Dell into the metaverse with the creation of Dell Island in the virtual world Second Life. Laura has earned the designation of Accredited Business Communicator from the International Association of Business Communicators, and received her Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from Louisiana State University. Before joining Dell Financial Services in 2000, she worked at the Texas Workforce Commission and PepsiCo Food Systems Worldwide.