Nashville-based Jumpstart Nova announced its first venture fund Wednesday, with $55 million to invest exclusively in Black founder-led health care companies, according to a news release. The funding round brought together nearly 100 investors — including Eli Lilly and Company, HCA Healthcare, Cardinal Health, Meharry Medical College, Vanderbilt University, American Hospital Association, and others. Though Jumpstart is based in Tennessee, the Nova fund will have roots in Los Angeles, as well. Jumpstart Nova partner and native Angeleno Kathryne Cooper is based in L.A. and is working alongside Jumpstart co-founder Marcus
A former Google employee who resigned in 2015 has publicly criticized his former employer in a Reddit post alleging a “toxic” drinking culture within his team at the time that included sexual assault. Donald King worked as a Google software engineer from 2008 to 2015. King posted publicly on Reddit last week alleging he experienced a toxic drinking culture and sexual assault during those years. Liz Fong-Jones, an Asian engineer who worked at Google at the same time as King, wrote on Twitter that she could “personally corroborate many of
It’s week two of the new year and Black founders are already killing it. Here we’ve compiled a list of founders that have secured millions in capital in the hope of expanding their business since the year began. Bfree Bfree, a Nigerian credit management fintech, has embarked on global expansion after raising $1.7 million in a pre-Series A round, to tap the opportunities in emerging markets, where digital lending apps have recently sprung up in droves. Its aim is to expand to Asia, Europe, South America, and across Africa Companies
Black Women Talk Tech, a worldwide collective of Black women tech founders, is broadening its reach. The firm has formally announced the acquisition of Black Female Founders (#BFF) for an undisclosed amount. “This acquisition will help us reach and support more Black women on their entrepreneurial journeys,” Black Women Talk Tech co-founder Regina Gwynn tells EBONY. “We are so excited to connect with those who are new to Black Women Talk Tech and power their companies to billion-dollar growth,” she added. Esosa Ighodaro-Johnson, co-founder and chief marketing officer of Black Women Talk
Floyd Mayweather is being sued for his alleged involvement in an investor cryptocurrency scam, which claims these celebrities misled followers in a scheme. But he’s not the only one – Paul Pierce and Kim Kardashian are also being slammed with a lawsuit. The lawsuit, which accuses the stars of misleading their followers in what has been described as a pump-and-dump scheme, claims the celebrities convinced their fans to buy EthereumMax tokens, only to sell them once their value was inflated. According to the Hollywood reporter – they were allegedly paid in
We sat down with Ruben Harris, the man everyone is talking about, for an interview discussing everything from imposter syndrome, bootstrapping a company, making time for personal hobbies, and of course his startup, Career Karma, a company that matches career switchers to alternative education paths that might help them break into the tech industry. Career Karma just raised a whopping $40Million from investors. Its Series B fundraise was led by San Francisco-based global venture capital firm Top Tier Capital Partners, with existing investors Softbank’s SB Opportunity Fund, Emerson Collective, 4S
At POCIT, we’re remaining optimistic that things will surely get better this year, and the main reason we believe that is because there is an abundance of amazing Black, Asian and Latinx trailblazers already making an undeniable impact across the globe – whether that’s as software engineers, 3D artists, venture capitalists or founders. While we’re still in the first few weeks of the year – I thought it would be good to do a round-up of our best and most inspiring interviews that I think you should definitely check out.
The Open Source Afro Hair Library, set to launch on Juneteenth 2023, will be the gaming world’s first free database of 3D-modeled Black hairstyles. Last year, Oakland-based artist and UC Santa Cruz assistant professor A.M. Darke started recruiting Black artists for the Open Source Afro Hair Library after she began to get frustrated with the lack of effort some artists put into ensuring Black characters had realistic Black hair. For example, Monster Hunter World players didn’t see any Black hairstyles added to the game until the release of a paid expansion nearly two years
Latinx founders are the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in America–but their businesses are struggling to scale and that is partly due to the serious lack of funding they’re given. Latinx founders own 350,000 businesses with employees in the United States, and these businesses create nearly three million American jobs, according to research I led with Stanford University’s Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative. And yet they receive a small portion of the investment piece. While overall numbers on funding for Latinx founders are depressing, Individual stories are inspiring. The 2021 Crunchbase Diversity Spotlight Report highlights the 30 Black-
Tesla HR chief Valerie Capers Workman is leaving the company, according to an internal memo obtained by Bloomberg. Workman first became Tesla’s head of HR in 2020 and was among the most senior Black executives at the company. She first joined the company in 2018 as an attorney in its legal department but now she’s set to join Handshake, the career network firm, as a chief legal officer. In the internal email seen by Bloomberg, Workman compared her experience at Tesla with that of her time in track and field
