Precious Drews’ personal story is one of perseverance and passion. She’s the second youngest of eight children and first became an entrepreneur in middle school – making YouTube videos for her favorite artists in exchange for easy money. Although she didn’t consider herself an entrepreneur – anyone that hears her story can be quick to identify her as a natural-born leader. She was also the first in her family to go to college and later start her own small business – a natural skin care line that uses recycled coffee
Donald Boone, CEO of BoxedUp, an equipment rental company, started the company back in 2019. He would spend hours and even days packaging orders himself with dozens of equipment lying around his family home. Now he runs a three-person company that’s got $2.3M in funding. The 30-something-year-old Maryland native had the realization that in order to make an impact on his community- he needed to find a way to pursue entrepreneurship full time. After a corporate career in engineering, a failed startup, and a career at Amazon, he’s found a
This Black Blockchain Engineer Just Raised $3.3M Seed Round For Mueshi, Her Fine Art NFT Marketplace
Ariana Waller — known as Ariana The Techie — is a Miami-based blockchain engineer and the owner and founder of Mueshi, Inc. The company launched to be a marketplace where users will be able to buy, sell, and fractionally invest in fine art NFTs. The 26-year-old has just raised a $3.3 million seed round for Mueshi led by Harlem Capital to establish its place in the industry. Presight VC, CapitalT VC, music luminary and investor, Ted Lucas, Alexandra Wilkis Wilson, Black Venture Capital Consortium, and a cohort of additional strategic angel investors also participated. “I was
A damning body of research shows how Black women go unseen and unheard as they navigate the healthcare system with celebrities like Beyoncé and Serena Williams also bringing attention to the risks of childbirth for Black mothers by sharing their own personal stories. Doctors have spent decades trying to understand what makes African-American women so vulnerable to losing their babies. Now, there is a growing consensus that racial discrimination experienced by Black mothers has much to do with it. The stark figures, which revealed Black women are three times more likely
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
Zaire Allen founded Love Circular, a digital academy for aspiring user experience and user interface designers, who build the visual and interactive components for apps and websites. The 25-year-old launched it in July 2020, two months after he was let go as a UX designer at a mortgage company during the pandemic. During the covid-19 pandemic, hundreds of thousands of people were either furloughed or fired – leaving some in limbo on how to make ends meet. But coronavirus, albeit an awful two years, was a life-changing period for some who
Doing it for the culture. Husband and wife duo Jermaine and Whaketa Hargrove plan to launch streaming animation network, Animation TV, later this year and it’s set to offer a range of exclusive content. A subscription and linear channel model will also be available for ease of access to viewers. Animation TV will also work in collaboration with Small Town Animation Studios to deliver original, exclusive animation content. This includes the highly anticipated diabetic superhero movie Gumshe: The Type 1 Protector, or faith-based series The Sunday Schoolers, and other originals like Animate My Life, Welcome to
America is in the midst of a Black maternal health crisis, and according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2020, Black women in America are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than white women, a disparity the CDC attributes to factors including underlying chronic conditions, structural racism, and implicit bias. There is a damning body of research showing how Black women and birthing people go unseen and unheard as they navigate the healthcare system with celebrities like Beyoncé and Serena Williams bringing attention to the risks of childbirth
Black tech entrepreneur Bill Spruill reportedly turned his employees into millionaires when he sold his startup Global Data Consortium for an undisclosed amount. Global Data, which he launched make in 2012, makes software that verifies the identity of people behind online transactions, an important step in eliminating potential fraud. Though financial details have not yet been revealed, Spruill described the deal to Axios as a “Bronto-level transaction,” which was acquired by NetSuite for $200 million in 2015. When Spruill started the Global Data Consortium he only raised $5 million from investors – this is rather
