Dria Ventures has launched its first fund with $8 million to invest in pre-seed and seed-stage startups addressing America’s rising cost crisis. Led by Founder and Managing Partner Megan Maloney, the fund is targeting two sectors where “the math is broken”: healthcare and Main Street productivity. In healthcare, costs now make up nearly 20% of the country’s GDP, while small businesses are spending upwards of $120,000 annually on outdated software. Dria is backing founders who are building practical, cost-saving infrastructure to fix these broken systems. A thesis rooted in lived
The temporary surge in funding for Black startup founders after George Floyd’s murder was driven largely by investors who had never previously backed a Black entrepreneur, and most showed only surface-level support, new research from Cornell University shows. Funding returned to prior levels within two years. Cornell researchers analyzed PitchBook data on venture funding from 2020 to 2023, using algorithms and manual review to classify the race of 150,000 founders and 30,000 investors. Surge in funding in the wake of Black Lives Matter The researchers found that at the height
Workplace surveillance in the Global South is on the rise, according to a new report by Coworker.org, a labor rights nonprofit based in New York. Technologies for tracking and managing staff workers are expanding in scale and sophistication in more than 150 startups and regional companies based in Kenya, Nigeria, Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, and India, researchers said. The term “Little Tech” was made popular by the VC firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), which argues that excessive regulation was stifling innovation. The Coworker.org report found that the Little Tech ecosystem, which primarily consists of unregulated, venture
Fewer Black professionals are entering venture capital, and even fewer are rising through the ranks, a new report has found. The Black Venture Report 2025 On Juneteenth, BLCK VC released the third edition of its Black Venture report. Its first edition was promoted by a question between the co-founders: Where are we, really? That question expanded into a critical report that highlights the link between Black representation and power in venture capital. “Our research continues to expose a stark truth: Black investors remain severely underrepresented, especially in senior roles,” it
Venture capital firm Collab Capital has closed a $75 million Fund II, with backing from Apple, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, and The Leon Levine Foundation. The fund will focus on Seed and Series A investments, supporting founders who, as Collab puts it, are “best equipped to solve real-world, consequential problems through unique market expertise and lived experience.” Using Fund II to sharpen its investment model Collab Capital was founded by Barry Givens, Justin Dawkins, and Jewel Burks Solomon, who gained Silicon Valley prominence as the first head of Google for
Zeal Capital Partners has closed its second fund at $82 million, tripling its assets under management (AUM) to $186 million in just five years. The Washington, DC-based firm plans to invest the new capital in early-stage startups across fintech, healthcare, and the future of learning and work. A Broader, Stronger Investor Base Zeal’s investor base has grown significantly with this latest fund. Zeal’s limited partners now include Citi Impact Fund, M&T Bank, MassMutual, Wells Fargo, Zaffre Investments and Spelman College, according to a press release shared with POCIT. In addition
Houston-based South Loop Ventures announced a $21 million Fund I, led by Rice Management Company and Chevron Technology Ventures. Texas Capital Bank and The Great Commission Foundation of the Episcopal Diocese of Texas also participated in the funding round. According to its founder and managing director, Zach Ellis, the fund will focus on founders nationwide but hopes to attract founders in healthcare, energy, space, and climate. The firm has made 13 investments and hopes to increase to at least 30. Investing in diverse founders The firm launched in 2022, focusing
The Sidemen, Europe’s largest YouTube collective, has co-founded Upside, a venture capital firm backing consumer tech startups. The group, which includes KSI, Miniminter, Zerkaa, TBJZL, Behzinga, Vikkstar123, and W2S, has amassed over 50 million followers and 50 billion views across all social media channels. The Sidemen’s new venture As stated by The Times, they’ve launched Upside VC, using some of their own mone, and have made 12 investments between £100,000 ($ 133,700) and £500,000 ($666,880) in companies, including Howbout, Mile, and Nimbi. Companies supported by Upside will not only get finance
Wave Ventures, Europe’s largest Gen Z-run VC fund, has announced its third fund, which is €7 million ($7.8 million), tripling the size of its previous fund. The fund is supported by a diverse group of investors, such as Slack, Bolt, Skype, Supercell, Wolt, Silo AI, and Smartly.io, as well as European early-stage VCs, and family offices, according to a press release. The fund comes at a crucial time for early-stage investing across the Nordics and Baltics. The quick advancement of generative AI, no-code tools, and open-source technologies makes entrepreneurship more
Black Unicorn Factory (BUF), a Los Angeles-based venture capital firm, has officially become the most prominent Black-owned venture capital firm in US history by the number of startups funded and total equity issued. The firm has provided over $500 million in alternative investment capital by backing over 150 early-stage companies across various industries. “Cash or other consideration” BUF differs from other firms that rely solely on cash-based investing, as it leverages non-traditional, SEC-compliant methods rooted in the concept of “cash or other consideration” as allowed under exemptions like Reg CF,
