Founder of femtech startup Ruby Love, Crystal Etienne, joined forces with her husband, Jean, last year to start VC firm CaJE, a VC that focuses on investing in “soil” rounds, similar to a family and friends investing round. Crystal’s own startup has raised $15 million since it was founded in 2016. She bootstrapped the company from its humble beginnings to over $10 million within two years. But she still felt “cajed” many times while entering the new industry with very little help along the way, but overcame every obstacle. Jean ran his
Churpy, a Kenyan fintech startup, has secured a $1 million seed round led by Unicorn Growth Capital. Also participating were Antler East Africa, Nairobi’s business angel network, and a group of Rally Cap LPs. The round will be used to support expansion to Egypt, Nigeria, and South Africa. The startup said it wants to transform how businesses manage the debt owed to them by their customers through its Software as a service (SaaS) product – which automates the labor-intensive processes of reconciling incoming payments and invoices that are still predominantly manual for most local
Founder and CEO at Seidea CIC, a career development platform with a social mission to diversify the cybersecurity industry, Stephanie Itimit sat down with us to discuss building a thriving organization, finding the right co-founder, initially balancing her mission with a 9 to 5, and more. The goal for Seidea is to break down barriers for Black and Minority Ethnic women and help them start their cybersecurity careers through cyber career programs and industry events. Itimit and her team also work with employers to develop virtual internships, strengthen their employee
Today the Kapor Center, a nonprofit addressing racial inequities in STEM education and the tech industry, in partnership with the NAACP, released their 2022 report titled State of Tech Diversity: The Black Tech Ecosystem. The report analyzes and synthesizes the latest data, demonstrating the continual exclusion of Black talent across the tech ecosystem, which represents a great loss of talent and innovation for one of the major drivers of our nation’s economy. The report findings reveal that progress towards racial equity is not only stalled but in many respects, regressing, throughout
Y Combinator’s latest batch — W22 — features 414 startups from 42 countries, representing more than 80 sectors. America reportedly has the most representation while India comes in second with 32 startups and Nigeria sits in third, having delivered 18 startups. This is the first time an African country is appearing in the top three. The W22 batch of the Y Combinator programme, which played a role in the early days of companies like Airbnb, Coinbase and Dropbox among others, is currently taking place, and concludes with a demo day end of
Back in 2020, Black Founders Matter made its first investment in a company called A Kids Book About, founded by Jelani Memory but since then it has invested in one of the most-decorated track star in US history and many others. Here’s the back story. Despite his best effort, Marceau Michel could not secure venture funding, so he decided to take matters into his own hands. What started off as a small T-shirt line that hosted the slogan, Black Founders Matter, to generate revenue for his own company has now turned into an ambitious
Black Tech Nation Ventures operates as a venture capital firm. The Company invests in start-up and seed stage technology companies based in the United States. Last year the firm was able to close in on $25 million for its national technology venture fund — Black Tech Nation Ventures (BTN.vc) — in under a year since launching. David Boone, founder of BlendED, became BTN.vc’s first portfolio investment. Along with Boone are the Pittsburgh Pirates and First National Bank as fellow investors in the fund. BTNV’s partners emphasized that while the fund has a social
An annual conference for Black tech entrepreneurs — reportedly the largest in the country — is relocating from the West Coast to Austin. Due to the pandemic, organizers switched AfroTech’s event from an in-person event to a virtual event in 2020 and 2021. But now – it’s back in person. Black Americans continue to be underrepresented in the science, technology, engineering, and math sector. According to the Pew Research Center, Black workers account for only 9 percent of the country’s STEM workforce but 11 percent of the entire workforce. “Black
Only a small percentage of Black founders in the UK received VC funding between 2009 to 2019 — and none so far have received late-stage funding. But 2021 proved to be fruitful, with initiatives like Google’s Black founders’ – and others – awarding Black and minority startup founders for their innovations. One such founder, who received backing, is Erika Brodnock, the cofounder of Kami, a parental support platform that gives parents access to expert advice via a mobile app. The startup received a $67k grant from the BFF in June
Emtech, a Black female owned central bank digital infrastructure provider, targets emerging markets where payments infrastructure need aligning with digital innovations — to improve efficiency, introduce new products and services that are likely to promote financial inclusion, and in ensuring the secure movement of money.
