POCIT. Telling the stories and thoughts of the underrepresented in tech. POCIT. Telling the stories and thoughts of the underrepresented in tech.
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Business

Black-Owned Start-Ups Awarded $1.2M In Financial Support Thanks To The Meda Million Dollar Challenge

Three Black founders have walked away with enough money to make their businesses flourish after the largest Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) entrepreneurial competition in the nation picked them as winners. This is the fourth annual competition where five companies received $1.2 million in financial support. Metropolitan Economic Development Association – also known as Meda – was founded by a group of Minnesota business leaders looking to attack inequity within minority communities in the state. “Meda operates a growing Community Development Fund Institution (CDFI) that provides needed capital for BIPOC businesses

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Black Lawyer Launches Legal Fund To Support Black-Owned Start-Ups Using Crowdfunding to Raise Capital

Elizabeth L. Carter, Esq., LLC, a Black-owned securities law firm, has just launched a legal fund to support Black businesses that plan to raise capital through crowdfunding campaigns and other means. Ms. Carter, whose firm created the #BlackCapitalMatters Gift Legal Fund, is seeking corporate and individual contributions to the fund, which will help subsidize securities legal services for Black-owned businesses. It will also allow the firm to provide legal support at below-market-rate so that more Black-owned businesses can combat the disparities in investing that they often face. Black-owned entities, including businesses, nonprofits,

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Fintech Klasha Has Partnered Up With OpenCart To Help International Businesses Accept Payments From Africa

Nigeria and San Francisco-based start-up, Klasha, has just announced its partnership with OpenCart, an all-in-one e-commerce builder that provides businesses with the tools to create and launch an online store. Klasha, first launched in 2018 by Jess Anuna and Kemi Oritsejafor, specializes in helping merchants worldwide sell online to Africa and receive payments in local currency. The new partnership means that OpenCart merchants can now sell more and accept payments online from customers across the continent while enjoying “superfast last-mile delivery to customers across the continent within 10 days.” Merchants who

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NBA Star Klay Thompson Takes On The Tech World With New Investment In Fantasy Sports Startup Sleeper

Basketball superstar Klay Thompson has just invested in fantasy sports startup Sleeper, reportedly contributing to the quadrupling of its value to more than $400 million. Sleeper is a compilation of football and basketball games that people can play online with friends. Its initial focus was on the National Football League (NFL) and the National Basketball Association (NBA), but the pandemic’s impact pushed the firm to get into esports as well. The company has gone from strength to strength despite pushback from coronavirus, with an average user reportedly spending between 20 to 35 minutes on

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African Genomics Startup 54gene Raises $25M To Expand Precision Medicine Capabilities

African genomics startup 54gene has been at the forefront of bridging the divide in the global genomics market, where less than 3% of genetic material used in research is from the continent. This figure is quite shocking since Africans and people of African descent are more genetically diverse than any other population. But 54gene, which was first launched in 2018, is on a mission to radically change this picture, and the $25 million it secured in Series B funding will bolster its efforts. The milestone round came after founder Dr. Abasi Ene-Obong raised

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Nigeria’s Food Processing Startup Releaf Secures $4.2M From Seed And Grants

The Nigerian agritech startup has just announced that it raised $4.2million through a seed round and a series of grants to scale its business across the country. Releaf, which has built a proprietary hardware and software solution to make farmers and food factories more efficient and profitable, was first launched in 2017 by Ikenna Nzewi and Uzoma Ayogu. The pair then went on to build Kraken, a proprietary patent-pending machine. But how does it actually work? Releaf buys nuts from farmers, then uses the Kraken to crack the nuts and crush the kernels into

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Facebook To Pay Up To $100M In Unpaid Invoices For Small Businesses Owned By Women And Minorities

Facebook has announced a $100-million commitment to a program that supports small businesses owned by women and minorities by buying up their outstanding invoices. This means that small businesses, who otherwise could have had to go months without getting paid by their customers, will be able to pay off their staff or bills. The tech media giant’s ‘Invoice Fast Track program’ is its latest effort to build its relationship with small businesses, which use its social media platform for business and advertising. Although the program isn’t necessarily new because it

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Barclays Eagle Labs Re-launches its Startup Accelerator for Black Tech Founders

Izzy Obeng Managing Director of Founder Vine

Barclays Eagle Labs has partnered with Foundervine [CEO Izzy Obeng pictured] to launch its second 12-week virtual accelerator program designed just for Black-founded early-stage tech businesses. The program, which officially kicks off on November 22, was created to help new startups founded by one or more black entrepreneurs access resources to help them with sales strategy, operations, product development, and leadership. According to Barclays, applications are now open for the Accelerator to UK-based digital and tech start or scale-ups with a “minimum viable proposition for their business and with one or more

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In Time For Season 5 Of Insecure – Here’s A Look At Issa Rae’s Startup Investments

Issa Rae keeps her private life to herself, but when it comes to business, she’s all about “getting her bag.” As she prepares for the return of Insecure season 5, a show about navigating through adulthood from an African-American female perspective, POCIT has decided to take a deep dive into her several startup investments. We break down which companies the producer, actress, and writer has invested into and how the businesses are thriving. Streamlytic – Founded in 2018 It seems Issa’s first investment was in a tech company that aims to

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MEOA Makes History As First Black-Led SPAC Traded On NASDAQ

Robin D. Watkins and CEO Shawn Rochester via AfroCrunch

Minority Equality Opportunities Acquisition Inc, known as MEOA for short, is now the first Black-led special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) traded on the Nasdaq Capital Market. The news on the milestone move comes after MEOA, which will continue to focus on historically undercapitalized minority-owned or controlled businesses, closed a $126.5 million upsized IPO of units on August 30. Its founders – chairman Shawn Rochester and CEO Robin Watkins – believe “the mission and purpose of MEOA will help catapult minority enterprise in this country.” Mr. Rochester told the Seattle Times that as a

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