Black-founded startups recently saw record amounts of investment, with quarterly funding commitments nearing or even topping $1 billion. But according to new data from Crunchbase, venture capital funding has dropped significantly in the second quarter of 2022, down to just $324 million. So far in 2022, only 100 U.S. startups with a Black founder have received funding, with $100 million invested in seed rounds, $591 million in early-stage rounds, and approximately $876 million in later-stage rounds. Startups with at least one Black founder received 1.9% of deal counts and 1.2% of
For many Black entrepreneurs, getting funding for their business is a daunting and disproportionately difficult task, especially because only about 1% of all venture dollars goes to Black founders, according to Crunchbase, despite Black and African Americans making up 13% of the U.S. population. But a trio of Black Techstars alumni — who each raised at least a million dollars in seed capital for their business — met at Startup Hall at the University of Washington to share their experience of raising capital. They also offered advice for Black founders looking to
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
