Pinky Cole Hayes has announced that Slutty Vegan is welcoming people to become franchisees of the company. Once a business becomes a franchise, it allows other people to sell goods through a licensing relationship. It also grants rights from one party to another. The new move will allow the business to expand. Cole hired former Planet Fitness and 7-Eleven exec Shawntel Daniels as franchise president, who has hinted that a high-profile celebrity will be the first franchisee. “I went to restructure on February 13, 2025, and then I repurchased the company
Founders + senior tech leaders, don’t miss these two exclusive events. Free entry, limited spaces. RSVP today! This October, as the tech and startup world descends on Houston, POCIT is hosting two exclusive events designed to deepen connections, foster leadership, and elevate voices across the tech ecosystem: the Breaking Bread Founder Dinner and the INNOV8 Tech Leadership Brunch. Whether you’re a founder building the future or a senior leader shaping it, these events are for you. Breaking Bread: Founder + VC Dinner On Monday, October 28, Breaking Bread will bring together 25 Series A and seed-stage
Two Black-owned health and wellness startups are teaming up to close the gap in menopause care for Black women. Black Girl Vitamins, a Chicago-based wellness brand, and Jayla Health, a hormonal health telehealth startup, are collaborating to offer free virtual consultations for menopause and perimenopause to Black women in New York, California, and Florida. The innovation will take place in October and November to honor Menopause Awareness Month by providing Black women with the necessary support tailored to their unique health needs. Black women and menopause Twenty-five years of research
Black-owned businesses faced the highest rejection rate for loans in 2024, according to a recent analysis by LendingTree. Nearly 2 in 5 (39%) of Black founders were denied when applying for loans, lines of credit, or merchant cash advances. Hispanic business owners also faced high levels of rejection, with a 29% rejection rate. Comparatively, only 1 in 5 (18%) of white-owned businesses experienced rejection. Black-owned businesses facing loan rejections Black-owned founders have always had to work significantly harder than their white peers. These latest statistics underscore the challenges faced by
Vibe-coding startup Anything has raised $11 million in financing at a $100 million valuation, led by Footwork, with additional backing from Uncork, Bessemer Venture Partners, and M13. Founded by former Google colleagues Dhruv Amin and Marcus Lowe, the platform lets anyone build and monetize an app through vibe coding — a technique where users provide an AI assistant with “vibes” or natural-language descriptions, and the assistant generates, refines, and debugs functional code. The Viral AI App Builder Anything went live on August 7, the same day as GPT-5, and reached
Shield, a crypto neo-bank, has raised a $5 million seed round led by Giant Ventures to help businesses send and receive money across borders more quickly and affordably. CEO Emmanuel Udotong told TechCrunch that he and his team launched Shield as mainstream uses for crypto were scarce, while “bad actors” were dominating the space. Shield’s goal, he said, is to bring blockchain into the real economy by solving real-world problems. How Shield Works Shield was founded in 2022 by Udotong, his brother Isaiah, and their college friend Luis Carchi. The
This article is sponsored by Morgan Stanley Inclusive & Sustainable Ventures. Morgan Stanley Inclusive & Sustainable Ventures (MSISV) is supporting the future of innovation by backing early-stage startups and nonprofits with the capital and tools they need to scale. Building on the momentum of the Inclusive Ventures Lab and Sustainable Solutions Collaborative, MSISV has already distributed over $30 million in capital to over 130 ventures in the last eight years. MSISV is home to two tailored accelerator programs: a Lab for tech-driven startups and a Collaborative for emerging nonprofits. Both programs
Garage, an online marketplace selling specialized equipment commonly used in local government, raised $13.5 million in a Series A funding round led by Infinity Venture. Other investors included Benchstrength, Wayfinder Ventures, and FJ Labs, according to TechCrunch. Being a firefighter since age 15 meant that co-founder Martin Hunt knew the struggles of small communities with tight budgets buying fire equipment. In 2023, he asked a colleague about better options for fighters. “When I couldn’t find anything, it became clear that there was a need for a streamlined, nationwide marketplace for
SRE.ai, an AI-powered automation platform, announced that it raised $7.2 million in a seed round led by Salesforce Ventures and Crane Venture Partners. The company will provide users with natural language AI agents that can perform complex enterprise DevOps workflows, such as continuous integration and testing, according to TechCrunch. “Instead of stitching together different low-code tools for enterprise applications like Salesforce, compared to products built on AWS, GCP, or Azure, teams can now move faster with context-driven, chat-like experiences that work across all of them,” CEO Raj Kadiyala said. How does
Group Black, originally founded to channel ad dollars into Black-owned media, is expanding its reach to a broader audience, Business Insider reports. The company has rebranded as Group Black Holdings and is now targeting what it calls “Gen Next,” a values-driven audience that cuts across race, age, and background. Bonin Bough, Group Black’s co-founder and chief strategy officer, maintains that Group Black is “evolving—not abandoning” its foundation. The company is expected to share more details on September 8. Portrait Media Group: A New Venture As part of its rebrand, Group Black announced
