Steven Bartlett’s The Diary of a CEO regularly tops the UK charts, pulling in 6.6 million streams a month and more than £1 million ($1.2 million) a year in advertising. He’s had a roster of high-profile guests, including Molly-Mae Hague, Craig David, Liam Payne and Piers Morgan, and despite this, he still says: “I don’t think of myself as an interviewer or a podcast host.” In an interview, the man who seemingly has it all reveals some truths about his journey. He is, after all, the millennial who dropped out of university
“Focus On Being So Good They Can’t Ignore You”: The Black CEO Who Sold His Startup For Eight Figures
In an industry that lacks serious diversity, Timothy Armoo has beaten the odds. He’s launched a startup, raised investment, hired, scaled, and sold his business. He’s done what every aspiring business owner hopes to do – all at the age of 27. But much like many other founders, particularly those from marginalized groups, his journey has been far from smooth sailing. Armoo founded his social media advertising business, Fanbytes, in 2017, with Ambrose Cooke and Mitchell Fasanya, building it up to employ 65 people. What does it do? The London
Thinking of getting angel investors, but not sure where to start? Where should you look? What questions should you ask them? Firstly – let’s address the elephant in the room. What is an angel investor? Angel investors are individuals who invest in entrepreneurial ventures like startups using their own capital in exchange for equity. They often provide the startup founders with capital for their business, but they do not have any operational voting rights in the company. Angels can come from different backgrounds, such as venture capitalists, corporate investors, wealthy
Akash Mehta is a 28-year-old entrepreneur and influencer who recently made it onto Forbes’ ’30 under 30’ list in media and marketing. A digital expert, he has harnessed the power of social media to quickly build Fable & Mane, the haircare and wellness business of which he is the founder and CEO. Mehta left his job as a global digital manager at Dior to start his own haircare brand and now Fable and Mane have sold six figures’ worth of products in a week following viral TikTok posts. Mehta, who
Oregon-based ‘A Kids Company About’ secured 93% of the funds from Black investors. He managed to raise a $1 million seed round, where the smallest check was $1,000. A fund headed by Barack Obama’s financial advisor led the Series A round. Backstage Capital and Emerson Collective, both of which invest in underrepresented founders, also participated in the round alongside several Black angels. Jelani Memory, who launched the business in 2019 when it was known as A Kids Book About, also accepted a range of investments as small as $5,000 from
Emmanuel Okeleji is the co-founder and CEO at SeamlessHR, a cloud-based HR and payroll technology company that recently announced its $10 million series A. His work and entrepreneurial experiences span multiple industries, including healthcare, agriculture, and education. By the end of medical school, Okeleji had gone through a Goldman Sachs investment banking internship and kicked off an incorporated software development company alongside his current co-founder, Deji Lana. One of the tools they built back in the mid to late 2000s, a software tool for cooperatives, is still in use today.
After securing $32 million in a Series A funding round back in February, Canela Media became one of the largest funded Latino-owned companies. The New York-based digital media technology company was launched in 2019 in an effort to cater to Latino and Spanish-speaking communities and it claims to currently reach more than 50 million unique Hispanic viewers across its over 180 premium Spanish-language websites. Canela’s streaming-video app, Canela.TV, is entirely free and supported by ads. Its app, which was launched in 2020, offers on-demand licensed and original shows, as well as
Isoken Igbinedion was just 10 years old when she had a “very dangerous encounter” with chemical relaxers that caused her natural hair to fall out. After this experience – she then went on to spend the next 20 years using extensions to give her hair a chance to regrow and in that time, she realized how much friction there was in the hair products and services market. Now at 30-years-old, she’s the CEO of Parfait, a Black-owned company that uses AI and facial recognition technology to provide custom wig products
Frustrated by the lack of inaction by many traditional VCs, some investors are trying to change the system and close the funding gap. Here we have a list of investors who are mobilizing and deploying capital, building economic power beyond the 1%. While not all of these VCs are 100% focused on funding underrepresented founders, they say they are inclusive and intentional about investing in founders who are women, Black, Indigenous, People of Color, LGBTQ+, over 50, and people with disabilities. The majority of the list, first created by Allyson
Melissa Pegus has been chosen as the Managing Director for Techstars Atlanta Powered by J.P. Morgan, the latest accelerator to open up in the city. The new program, backed by an $80 million investment by J.P. Morgan, will support diverse entrepreneurs across the country. While the program is open to founders of all backgrounds, it is designed to provide equitable access to funding and support for Black, Hispanic and Latino, Indigenous American, and Pacific Islander entrepreneurs. In the first half of 2021, Black entrepreneurs received just 1.2 percent of U.S. venture capital funding. Additional data show