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
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
A Greensboro attorney and entrepreneur is bringing racial diversity to children’s entertainment by creating a range of books using AR. Kya Johnson launched online entertainment platform RainbowMe in December 2014 with co-founders Talib Graves-Manns, who is a marketing entrepreneur, and Bernard Bell, an Atlanta-based television veteran. Back in 2014- RainbowMe was one of three organizations to receive free workspace and $40,000 in seed funding from CODE2040’s Entrepreneurs-in-Residence pilot program. CODE2040, a San Francisco nonprofit that supports the inclusion of underrepresented minorities in the tech industry, partnered with Google on the initiative that’s backing African-American and
Kadeem Woodson opened Enkel’s Barbershop last year to provide more comfort for queer customers. Although barbershops have long been regarded as a sanctuary for Black men – not all of them are a safe space for queer Black men. A study by Smith College found that some Black, queer patrons who viewed themselves as “clockable” or easily detected as a homosexual would change their physical appearance and visit shops during off-peak hours to avoid uncomfortable situations. But Woodson says he wants members of his community to remain authentically themselves and feel comfortable
Athlete and activist Colin Kaepernick and his partner’s Canadian businessman Jim Nikopoulos and activist Akim Aliu have made a seed investment in Naomi Osaka’s KINLÒ brand with Kaepernick joining the brand’s board of directors. Osaka has also brought on a new brand President, Mia Meachem, who joins KINLÒ with over 20 years of brand marketing experience with roles across notable beauty brands including Drunk Elephant – a part of the Shiseido organization, The Estee Lauder Companies, and Burt’s Bees. In her new role as President, Meachem will help to drive
A £3 million cash fund for black founder-led tech businesses has been announced by Google. The Black Founders Fund, running for its second year, will be awarded to innovative European tech startups run by black founders. Recipients will need to demonstrate how they’re using technology to solve everyday problems. In return, they will receive up to $100,000, plus $200,000 in credit to use towards Google’s cloud services and advertising support, and mentoring by industry experts. “The UK is one of the most start-up-friendly environments in the world. Yet, Black start-up founders
According to The Big Deal, less than 1% of all VC dollars went toward startups with one or more women founders last year, details investments in Africa. However, on a more positive note – depending on how you look at it, founding teams counting women and men as members raised 17% of VC investments in Africa in 2021. But the lack of investment in women-founded startups isn’t new. If we took a look back almost a decade ago – according to Briter Bridges, another publication that tracks VC investments in
Last week, Yep!, a “financial super app” with payments, remittance, and banking features, announced that it has raised $1.5 million in a pre-seed round led by pan-African VC Greenhouse Capital. The San Francisco- and Lagos-headquartered startup was started by Olaoluwa Awojoodu, who then teamed up with Airende Ojeomogha and Garry Ottosen to start Yep!. The startup plans to go live across the five markets where E-Settlement is present, serving digital financial services to consumers, small business owners, and merchants. They also have a mission to enhance financial inclusion by leveraging PayCentre Africa — the startup’s agent banking platform, to
Curacel, the YC-backed startup developing insurance infrastructure for the African market, has launched a new interface that allows digital businesses like those in retail, fintech, e-commerce, and logistics to add insurance to their core products. Dubbed Curacel Grow – the new product is an embedded insurance product that empowers technology companies to seamlessly offer insurance as part of their existing products and services. The Nigerian insurtech startup is launching Grow to support insurance distribution to millions of Africans through partners like Barter by Flutterwave, Float, Payhippo, and other leading technology companies. Insurance
