Business Archives - Page 28 of 40 - POCIT. Telling the stories and thoughts of people of color in tech.

Black-Owned Chicago AI Startup Lands $100K In Latest ‘Northwestern Mutual Black Founder’ Accelerator

A Chicago startup that uses AI to help people better leverage their professional network is part of the newest cohort of startups selected as part of the Northwestern Mutual’s Black Founder Accelerator program. 4Degrees, led by CEO Ablorde Ashigbi and CTO David Vandegrift, will receive a $100,000 investment as part of the 12-week program. It will also work alongside Northwestern Mutual and its accelerator partner gener8tor to help grow its business. The company, launched by Ashigbi and Vandegrift, two former investors at Pritzker Group Venture Capital, back in 2017 was

Jeff Bezos-Backed ‘Chipper Cash’ Gets $2B Valuation With $150M Extension Round Led By FTX

An African cross-border payments company has raised $150 million in a Series C extension round led by Sam Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency exchange platform FTX. Chipper Cash, founded in 2018 by Ham Serunjogi and Maijid Moujaled, is a no-fee peer-to-peer cross-border payment service in Africa. Users can accept payments in Ghana, Uganda, Nigeria, Tanzania, Rwanda, South Africa, and Kenya through their app. Chipper Cash‘s investment comes barely six months after it closed its first Series C round of $100 million, led by SVB Capital, the corporate venture capital arm of SVB Financial Group. Deciens Capital, Ribbit Capital, Bezos

Bank Of America Pledges $10M To Historically Black Johnson C. Smith University To Expand Its Business Programs

The banking institution has pledged $10 million to one of the leading private liberal arts Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in the South. According to a press release, the funds are a part of Bank of America’s Mayor’s Racial Equity Initiative in the Charlotte, NC region. It includes a $1.25 billion five-year commitment to create more economic opportunities and push racial equality within local communities. In an official statement, Kieth Cockrell, President of Bank of America Charlotte, said: “Our long-term relationship with JCSU has set the foundation for this critical moment – a

Black And Profitable Part 2: Meet 4 Women Who Bootstrapped Their Way To Success

A sequel on the piece of Black founders profitable without Venture capital. Not all startups reach the promised land of VC funding. Not all startups require VC funding to be successful. With the odds stacked against Black and Brown entrepreneurs, they typically need to find other ways to innovate and grow. Money isn’t always easy to come by. Bootstrapping means launching and growing your startup using your personal financial resources. See how these Black women founders left behind the “scale no matter what” mentality. Instead, they built their startups into successful, profitable

Historically Black ‘Florida A&M University’ Receives $100,000 Grant To Launch Incubator For Startup Founders

Florida A&M University has received a $100,000 grant from Wells Fargo to launch a small business incubator to assist women and minority-owned businesses. The grant will advance hiring initiatives for a program manager to oversee operations of the incubator and modernize an existing location for entrepreneurs to call home. Funding will also enable the incubator’s staff to support program participants in exploring the feasibility of their business concepts, launching, expanding, and scaling their businesses. The remaining funds will support future marketing and promotions throughout the development of the project. The

North Carolina Is The Best State To Start A Business, According To A New Study, But Which Is The Worst?

A recent study conducted by LendingTree revealed that North Carolina is the best state to start a business in, but California is considered the worst. It’s important for founders – particularly those of color – to pick the right place to start their business as it can potentially make or break their startup. The Lending Tree study scored the 100 largest US metro areas by population based on factors like the proportion of residents who hold a bachelor’s degree, state corporate tax rates, and local housing costs. Of course –

Black Trans Netflix Employee Who Was Fired And Accused Of Leaking Data Finally Speaks Out

B. Pagels-Minor was a program manager at Netflix before she was fired and accused of leaking internal numbers about Dave Chappelle’s show ‘The Closer’ to the media. Chappelle’s latest stand-up comedy special, which was released on Oct. 5, has been widely criticized for including anti-trans jokes and for “attacking” the LGBTQ community. But Pagels-Minor took it upon herself to help organize a protest to provoke change against attacks on the community. She claimed that by 4 pm on Oct. 14th a walkout protest was announced and around 7 p.m –

Which VC Firms Are Actually Investing In Black Founders?

In the US, accelerators like Techstars and Y Combinator are the most active investors in Black founders, followed by early-stage investors like Backstage Capital and Kapor Capital that focus on diverse founders. As we already know, Black founders often get a small portion of the pie when it comes to investment – which is why it’s essential to highlight the VCs dedicated to investing in minority communities and those who have a history of supporting under-appreciated groups. We’ve sifted through a list created by the Black Founders list of VC firms across the US that

Clubhouse’s New Feature Could Help Young Black Artists Deliver High-Quality Performances

Clubhouse has added a new “music mode” on its app – giving musicians who play live on the social network their own special set of tools to optimize sound quality. The feature will hit iOS first before rolling out to Android. The company said the new feature would allow users to “broadcast with high quality and great stereo sound” — giving listeners a rich listening experience. It added that music mode will also make it possible to hook pro-level audio equipment like mixing boards and mics into Clubhouse. This is

Company Culture And Employee Experience Is Important, Says Tara Seney From Brandwatch

Brandwatch is hiring on pocitjobs.com Having worked at digital consumer intelligence platform Brandwatch for six years, Tara Seney has been Global Workplace Planning Manager for the past 20 months. Her time in the role has coincided with the pandemic, and as such, a lot of her work has focused on the company’s transition to remote work. In this interview, Tara talks about how Brandwatch has maintained a sense of community within the context of hybrid working and how they’ve evolved their diversity and inclusion initiatives in this new reality. Hey

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