PARTNERS & PERKS
Partners & Perks is BTI’s ecosystem marketplace for trusted local brands, community-centered businesses, and aligned experiences that help our members and broader community stay connected to culture, place, and opportunity.
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This part of BTI exists to circulate visibility, relationships, and support across our ecosystem—especially through Black-owned and community-rooted partners whose offerings help make Charlotte’s tech culture feel more connected, human, and locally grounded.
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Why It Matters
Strong ecosystems are not built by tech alone. They are built by the local businesses, gathering spaces, creative partners, and community-rooted experiences that help people connect, recharge, and keep showing up. Partners & Perks helps BTI extend that ecosystem beyond a single event.
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Indigo Coffee & Tea, owned by Reba Cox, is a community-centered coffee and tea brand that aligns with BTI’s vision of culture, connection, and intentional gathering. As the Official Coffee & Tea Partner of BTI, Indigo is more than a partner location.
It functions as one of BTI’s shared gathering spaces—a place where co-working, community events, creative exchange, and relationship-building can happen in a setting that feels welcoming and rooted in Charlotte.
Through this partnership, Indigo helps BTI activate consistent third-space experiences where people can work, connect, and build community. Member discounts extend that relationship beyond a single event and reinforce BTI’s belief that opportunity grows stronger when it is tied to real places and repeated touchpoints.
PARTNERS
​​Bèl Flame Candles, founded by Danielle Anyasodor-Lafontant, is the Offical Candle partner of BTI
Bèl Flame brings rest, and intentional experience into the BTI ecosystem—helping make room for the full human side of growth, not just performance.
As a BTI partner, Bèl Flame supports culture-forward activations and products that reinforce our belief that innovation, and belonging belong in the same ecosystem.
Do Greater Charlotte, founded by William McNeely, is a Charlotte-based nonprofit focused on building creative confidence in underserved and under-resourced communities through design, entrepreneurship, and innovative technology.
Do Greater helps strengthen the creative and community side of BTI’s ecosystem through space, programming, and community-centered innovation.
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Their partnership reflects BTI’s belief that access, creativity, and meaningful support all belong together when building stronger local opportunity.
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Surefire Market, founded by brothers Magloire Lubika, Joel Lutuangu, and Edric Lutuangu, is a Charlotte-based food and market concept rooted in quality meals, neighborhood connection, and community convenience. Built from a family legacy in local convenience retail, Surefire blends comfort food with a gathering space designed to bring people together.
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Surefire helps BTI connect food, place, and culture to community-building—turning shared meals and local gathering into part of how relationships are formed.
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Their partnership reflects BTI’s belief that community grows stronger when people can connect in spaces that feel welcoming, local, and rooted in shared experience.