NFL Star Jonathan Taylor has invested $6 million into Sports Tech company Strive in a Series A funding round. The funding round, led by venture capital firm, Future Communities Capital, included a range of investors, including SeaChange Fund and Seed to B Capital. NFL quarterback Troy Smith and Jonathan Taylor were new investors who also participated. Strive, founded by Nikola Mrvaljevic in 2016, aims to provide accurate muscle data to athletes and teams. Mrvaljevic decided to launch the company after seeing that college coaches welcomed his ideas on using data
The National Football League has announced its partnership with Ice Cube’s Contract With Black America Institute (CWBA) to support Black-owned businesses and increase diversity amongst NFL vendors. In addition, the partnership aims to boost the economic equity within Black communities by tackling the wealth gap and offering various opportunities in the financial, tech, and production sectors. The CWBA was launched in 2020 by rapper, actor, and filmmaker Ice Cube, alongside his business partner and entertainment lawyer, Jeff Kwatinetz, and works to address the systemic racism in the sports industry. In
Children’s social media platform Zigazoo has raised $17 million in Series A funding. Liberty City Ventures led the funding round, which included the National Basketball Association (NBA), Causeway Capital Management, Dapper Labs, OneFootball, Medici VC, Animoca Brands, and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Zigazoo, founded by Zak Ringelstein in 2020, has become one of the leading platforms for children’s short-form videos. The digital program, which has recently launched a non-fungible token (NFT) collection, aims to provide children with a safe and positive community where they can find joy, develop healthy online relationships,
Black-led fintech startup, Moove, raises $20 million in investment funding from the British International Investment (BII) program, formerly known as the CDC. The investment reflects the BII’s plans to build a resilient market in Nigeria, providing access to various economic opportunities for upcoming businesses while simultaneously accelerating the country’s limitless entrepreneurial spirit. Moove, co-founded by Jidi Odunsi and Ladi Delano in 2020, is a mobility fintech platform that provides revenue-based vehicle financing to mobility entrepreneurs across Africa. The co-founders, both British-born Nigerians with degrees from the London School of Economics
LL Cool J and Michelle Williams have teamed up with tech company Salesforces.org for the Rock the Bells festival, which will take place on August 6, 2022. Based in Queens, New York, the festival will feature live performances from music veterans Lil Kim, Rick Ross, Jadakiss, and more. The program will not only champion legendary voices within hip-hop, but it will also help to raise awareness of the mental health issues and stigmas that continue to plague the music industry. Salesforce.org first announced the initiative during their panel discussion earlier this year. They plan
African-based distribution platform, Afrikamart, has raised $850,000 in seed funding. The funding round, led by Bloc Smart Africa and managed by Bamboo Capital Partners, saw a range of investors participate, including Bamboo Capital Partners, Orange Ventures, Launch Africa, and Teranga Capital. Afrikamart, co-founded by Albert Diouf and Mignane Diouf in 2018, is a digital distribution platform that works to provide services to farmers. The brothers launched the tech platform to address farmers’ problems with poor market access and late payment from intermediaries using technology to collect products from thousands of
Black-led communication startup, Simpu, has launched its first-ever omnichannel inbox, allowing businesses to interact with customers through various social channels. The omnichannel inbox will not only enable companies to communicate with their consumers in a range of mediums, but it also allows them to diverge away from the traditional customer support channels, which primarily focus on phone, email, or chat support. Collins Iheagwara co-founded Simpu with Kolawole Balogun and Tioluwani Kolawole in 2020, which was designed to help business owners unify all their communication channels through an automated workflow. The
Tech giant Apple has celebrated the inauguration of the first class to graduate from their US Developer Academy program. The program was launched as part of Apple’s $100 million Racial Equity and Justice scheme and is the first of its kind to take place in North America. The scheme has provided students with the necessary skills and knowledge to land some of the most prestigious jobs in the tech industry. The Detroit-based academy offers members of the community a free program to teach them the fundamentals of coding, design, marketing, and
South African fintech startup Sava has raised $2 million to develop a spend management platform that will help African businesses manage their expenses, helping them reduce the time spent on recordkeeping and reconciliations. Sava CEO Yoeal Haile mentioned that the platform, which is yet to launch, will help African businesses run their financial operating systems. It will also allow them to capture data that will enable them to stay knowledgeable about their financial health business. Sava highlights two specific pain points businesses confront around spend management and reconciliations. One, businesses don’t have
Tesla was sued again on Thursday, this time by a group of current and former African American workers at its Fremont factory who say they were subject to racist graffiti, slurs and harassment they said the company and managers knew about but did nothing to stop. The plaintiffs, “have been subjected to offensive racist comments and offensive racist behavior and discipline by colleagues, leads, supervisors, managers, and/or Human Resources personnel on a daily basis,” the suit, which was read by the San Francisco chronicle, said. As of the time of
