Less than 1% of investment went to teams of Black entrepreneurs, according to the Extend Ventures report which also noted that across the 10-year period “a total of 10 female entrepreneurs of Black appearance received venture capital investment (0.02% of the total amount invested)… with none so far receiving late-stage funding”. Despite these odds, young Black women founders in the UK are helming businesses and driving innovation in areas as diverse as beauty, e-comm, and real estate, and total a total of 16 Black women have raised funding. Both inside
Ahead of international women’s day – Instagram announced that it will be introducing a special tag for professional accounts and influencers that ensures they receive credit for their content. The enhanced tagging feature lets Instagram users show additional information on “People Tags” on their posts. Beyond just a profile’s username, the tags will highlight the creators’ self-designated profile category (titles are chosen from Instagram’s list of categories, like “rapper” or “fashion stylist” or “photographer”) as well as their account’s full name or title. The information is shown when users tap
Taking a trip down memory lane has gotten Nas in a bit of trouble and he’s now facing a new lawsuit with none other than Hip-Hop photographer Al Pereira, who also went into a legal battle with Kyle and Kendall Jenner back in 2017. Pereira has reportedly filed over 450 copyright infringement lawsuits since 2015. After Nas posted a picture of himself, Tupac, and Redman from July 1993 to his Instagram, Pereira filed a lawsuit against him in February for sharing it without permission or licensing the work, according to
After less than two years as Netflix’s chief marketing officer, Bozoma Saint John is leaving the streaming giant. Variety was the first outlet to break the exclusive story and according to their report, Saint John’s departure from the company was “mutual and amicable.” The company, which also confirmed the moves on Thursday, did not elaborate on why Bozoma is departing. But in a statement, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos said he “loved working with Boz and have been inspired by her creativity and energy” and that she’s “attracted world-class marketers to the company
The accuracy of facial recognition has improved drastically since ‘deep learning’ techniques were introduced into the field about a decade ago but there’s still a long way to go. A few years ago – the world’s largest scientific computing society, the Association for Computing Machinery in New York City, urged a suspension of private and government use of facial-recognition technology, because of “clear bias based on ethnic, racial, gender, and other human characteristics”, which it said injured the rights of individuals in specific demographic groups. So this is clearly a big issue
Just one percent of VC-funded founders in the US are Black and the rates of investment in European Black-owned businesses are even lower. Just three percent of Londoners working in the tech sector are Black and only 8.5% of senior leaders in the UK tech sector are from Black, Asian, or minority ethnic backgrounds. If we were to break these numbers down further – the numbers would be very low for Black women. But this isn’t because they aren’t creating amazing things. Take Sheilisa McNeal Burgess for example – a
Using his experience from working at Google, Anthony Mays says he is hoping to bring others in the door by giving accessible tips, one-on-one mentorship, and interview help. His drive for wanting more diversity within the tech industry came after he had spent his first year at Google as a software engineer in 2013. In that same year – the company publicly released its diversity numbers for the first time. He knew the numbers were likely low, but he didn’t realize just how bad they were. It seems that Silicon Valley has
You might have read the article published last year on the Silicon Valley employee who hid his disability from his employers. In an in-depth piece about his experiences, they started off by saying: “I have a learning disability, meaning that I learn differently from other people. I live and work in Silicon Valley, the natural habitat of road runners. I’ve spent my professional life as one of those worker bees who creates the widgets and doodads that make life a little easier. For the sake of this story—and my employability—let’s
Snickerdoodle, an NFT data, and privacy platform announced that it’s partnering with FTX and Animoca Brands to launch NFT Lotería, a game centered around a series of community-focused NFTs derived from Lotería, an image-based game popular in the Latinx community. The NFT series will highlight Hispanic artists, and its sales will benefit national Hispanic nonprofits including the Hispanic Heritage Foundation, the Latino Community Foundation, and the Rising Tide Network. Proceeds will engage and train young Hispanic Americans to enter the tech sector and the emerging blockchain industry. Snickerdoodle developed the
Founder and CEO Chandler Malone’s tech startup ‘Bootup’ has reportedly raised $2.1 million in seed-round from all Black investors. The product was first launched in July 2021 during what was considered the pandemic’s peak where dozens of countries were thrown into lockdown. Bootup, which focuses on sourcing and hiring non-traditionally trained talent for a range of companies, is said to have grown rapidly, increasing revenue 100% month over month from July through November to a seven-figure run rate, while developing relationships with over 80 employers and 125 tech training programs, according
