Tyson Clark, a general partner at Alphabet Inc.’s venture arm GV and one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent Black startup investors, has died at the age of 43. GV CEO David Krane just issued a statement about the team losing the father-of-three, writing, “With great sadness, we share the news that Tyson Clark, our friend, and GV general partner, passed away yesterday due to sudden complications from a health issue. We are stunned and shattered by this loss. “The GV team extends our deepest sympathies to Tyson’s family and loved ones.
Venus Williams To Give $2M In Free Online Therapy Through Initiative With Women’s Tennis Association
Williams has teamed up with online mental health platform BetterHelp and the Women’s Tennis Association to offer the unique gift of more than $2 million in free therapy sessions, The New York Post reports. Before matching you with a therapist, the online platform asks you a series of questions including if you would like to be linked with a religious therapist, your reasons for needing therapy, and what it is you’re looking for in a therapist. For example – someone that teaches new skills, challenges beliefs, assigns homework, or proactively
Black people produce and share substantially more content than other groups on Facebook. While Facebook Stories has low usage in most of the U.S., it has “clusters of intense production” in places with a high concentration of African Americans, such as the arc in the Southeast known as the Black Belt, Facebook research found. But increasingly, the community seems to be turning away from the app. The number of Black monthly users on Facebook declined 2.7% in a single month to 17.3 million adults, according to a research report, “Industry Update on
Detroit-based StockX has appointed Robin Washington as its new audit committee chair; the company shared in a press release. Washington, a greater Detroit native, joins StockX’s board with a wealth of experience advising tech and life science companies. In her new role, she’ll advise its leaders as StockX plans for international expansion and diversifying its catalog. She served as executive vice president and CFO at Gilead Sciences for almost 12 years, where she oversaw the global finance, facilities and operations, investor relations, and IT organizations. Washington also currently serves on the boards of Alphabet
Two-year-old startup uLesson has just announced that it closed a $15 million Series B round. The startup first launched by providing a product pack of SD cards and dongles with pre-recorded videos for K-12 students. They can either access lessons via streaming or use the SD cards to download and store the content. But uLesson has introduced new features for an all-encompassing edtech play for this demographic. It added quizzes and a homework help feature to connect students with tutors from universities. It also launched a one-to-many live class feature with polls and leaderboards
Bento, a digital payroll and human resource management platform, is expanding to Ghana, Kenya, and Rwanda with plans to set up operations in six other markets in Africa over the next year. The startup, founded in 2019, is helping businesses automate the disbursement of salaries and other statutory remittances, including taxes and pensions. Bento said that its platform is leveraging data to extend credit solutions to third parties (employees) and other services like unemployment insurance, savings, and investments. Its proprietary credit engine, built in partnership with Israel’s Tarya, ensures the
Black Enterprise — one of the US’ leading Black digital media brands, with more than 8 million monthly unique visitors—will present its inaugural Sisters Inc. Summit on December 7. The event will feature some of the most influential and dynamic business owners. They will feature in a candid conversation with each other—and the corporations and investors who support them. Whether you consider yourself a founder, a CEO, a boss, or a side-hustler, SistersInc. is said to represent “a unique and valuable opportunity to connect to a powerful sisterhood of success to share resources,
Angela Muhwezi-Hall and Deborah Gladney’s dating app style platform matching job seekers with employers have raised $1.41 million. According to Project Diane, the pair, who launched the QuickHire app last fall, became the first Black women in Kansas to raise at least a million dollars in capital, which tracks minority women-led startups. Its users are encouraged to upload intro videos to demonstrate their soft skills. Muhwezi-Hall told Kansas news that almost 70 paying companies and 12,000 job-seekers already use the app. Users enter their ZIP code and are instantly shown
Europe is “solidifying its place as a global tech power”, according to Atomico’s annual State of European Tech 2021 report. However, research still shows women and minorities are not being given enough investment. European tech is projected to cross the $100B milestones of capital invested in a single year, close to 3 times the level in 2020, reported Dealroom. The total number of tech companies that have scaled to $1B+ in Europe has jumped from 223 last year to 321. Large rounds ($250M+) are now the norm in Europe —
TradeDepot, a Nigeria- and U.S.-based company that connects consumer goods brands to thousands of retailers and helps with distribution, has raised $110 million in new equity and debt funding. TradeDepot operates a B2B marketplace that connects small shops, kiosks, and retailers with wholesalers of global consumer brands that have access to food, beverages, and personal care products. The company owns its warehouses and fleets of drivers to carry out the distribution. It now plans to bring in more retail stores and expand its buy, pay later service across the continent.
