alGROWithm, a Nigeria-based growth agency is building Africa’s first growth talent accelerator. While most digital schools and programmes like Decagon, and AltSchool focus on solving the engineering and product talent gaps, growth is largely unattended to but alGROWithm’s GTAP aims to bridge that gap. The Growth Talent Accelerator Programme (GTAP) is a two-phase training programme in partnership with Digital Africa’s Talent 4 Startups Initiative which will help develop world-class growth engineers on the continent. Founded by Bili Sule in 2018, the agency uses growth engineering to design and implement sustainable growth models and strategies for African startups
Black Tech Nation Ventures operates as a venture capital firm. The Company invests in start-up and seed stage technology companies based in the United States. Last year the firm was able to close in on $25 million for its national technology venture fund — Black Tech Nation Ventures (BTN.vc) — in under a year since launching. David Boone, founder of BlendED, became BTN.vc’s first portfolio investment. Along with Boone are the Pittsburgh Pirates and First National Bank as fellow investors in the fund. BTNV’s partners emphasized that while the fund has a social
Since the start of the pandemic, the School District of Philadelphia has worked on getting students connected to broadband internet at home and making sure they have the right devices that will help them learn. Back in April 2020, it rolled out a program to get Chromebooks into the hands of more than 117,000 students via the Fund for the School District of Philadelphia and more than $7 million in donations. But with the distribution of thousands of devices comes the need for routine repairs and troubleshooting and that’s where one West Philadelphia High School class
The US is experiencing a boom in entrepreneurship, and women of color are the fastest-growing group among new business owners. A recent report from Wells Fargo shows that Black-owned businesses nosedived by more than 40% in April 2020, more than other racial and ethnic groups. However, the number of Black-owned businesses has since come back strong, currently at about 30% above pre-pandemic levels. Women of color in general have been driving new business growth during the pandemic, and overall, a record number of people are looking to start their own ventures, according to the White House. And while this is amazing
Jeeves — which describes itself as “an all-in-one corporate card and expense management platform for global startups” — was valued at $500 million back in September last year when it raised a $57 million Series B. This means it has quadrupled in value in just over six months as it announced last week that it has now raised $180 million in a Series C round that values the company at $2.1 billion. Jeeves only publicly launched in March of 2020, and officially emerged from stealth last June with $31 million
Adam Taylor, the founder of app development company Langston LLC and solo developer behind Black, built the app to facilitate culturally relevant and multifaceted news for Black people, with stories that speak to the community’s shared experience. A self-taught coder, Taylor has already integrated sophisticated technology into the app to provide relevant and personalized content, and is looking forward to learning more about native iOS frameworks and going deeper on his code with Apple engineers. In a previous interview with MIT, he spoke about the lack of diversity in the
Codecademy, the leading online learning platform for technical skills, is partnering with The Black and Brilliant Advocacy Network to launch an Applied Artificial Intelligence accelerator and mentorship program in Africa. After launching their first accelerator together in 2021, the organizations are teaming up again to bring the program to Africa and empower a new generation of tech talent in the region. Combining upskilling and mentorship, the Codecademy and Black and Brilliant program will focus on both the hard and soft skills needed to build successful careers in AI. Over the course of 10 weeks, participants
A Black army vet has started a new capital fund for veterans and businesses in underserved communities. The intiative was started by Alicia Hanf nine years after she left the military in 2012. She founded the Dear Mama Fund to raise $1 billion in capital for investments in Black, brown, female and veteran-led companies. Alicia returned to civilian life to lead the way for veterans to become startup founders, so alongside Dear Mama Fund she also launched the LA chapter of Bunker Labs, helping scale the organization from 10-35 locations in
Startup founders often turn to friends and family for their first bit of funding but for many Black founders, that’s not an option. The “friends and family” round is when people who personally know the founders of a company pitch in money, either as a loan or in exchange for a small ownership stake but for those who may not have many family members or members with little capital – they can’t even ask them. According to the Federal Reserve, the median net worth of Black households in the US is $24,100,
New York-based wellness startup Better & Better, which makes “vitamin-infused” vegan toothpaste, has just raised $4 million from investors including a VC firm cofounded by Will Smith and Japanese soccer player Keisuke Honda. Vladimir Vukicevic, cofounder and CEO of Better & Better, said the startup’s launch in 2020 was done with the ambition of allowing consumers to “microdose” vitamins through daily habits people have such as brushing their teeth. Microdosing involves the taking of small doses of substances, which has seen increased attention in recent years as scientists have tested
