After weeks of speculation about a leaked draft opinion that indicated that abortion would no longer be guaranteed as a federal right but instead left up to the states to decide, the United States Supreme Court has officially overturned Roe v. Wade. The move will allow more than half of states to ban abortion, with an immediate and enduring impact on tens of millions of Americans. The court decided there is no constitutional right to abortion in a case called Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization. In reaching that decision, the conservative-majority
London-based venture capital firm, Octopus Ventures, has launched its first £10 million ($12 million) pre-seed fund to support fresh startups in the fintech and health sectors. The firm, founded in 2007, works to fill the growing gap in early pre-seed funding for European founders. Kirsten Connell and Maria Rotilu, veterans of Seedcamp and Uber, will lead the company’s first-ever investment fund. They will bring their extensive experience and knowledge of growing firms from the beginning to the job, enabling them to work closely with start-ups in their early years. Octopus
Olympian Allyson Felix‘s footwear brand Saysh, co-founded by her brother and business partner Wes Felix, has secured an $8 million investment in its series A funding round. The funding round led by Iris Ventures, with participation from Redpoint Ventures saw Gap Inc. acquire an equity stake in Saysh. Additionally, Athleta, a subsidiary of Gap Inc., has agreed to showcase Saysh footwear on their website in partnership with the footwear brand. The news comes after Allyson Felix announced her departure from Nike in 2021, due to claims the company was not doing enough to support pregnant female athletes and
Mary J Blige has teamed up with medical tech company Hologic for her upcoming Good Morning Gorgeous tour. The singer will grace the stage with R&B singer Queen Naija and Grammy-award-winning artist Ella Mai. She will also be dedicating the show to raising awareness about Black women’s health. The Good Morning Gorgeous tour, which Hologic will present in partnership with The Black Promoters collective, is set to kick off on Saturday, September 17. The journey, which will begin in Greensboro, is expected to hit 23 cities across North America, including
Cayaba Care, a maternity health startup, has announced the closing of a $12 million Series A round that will work to expand the company’s footprint within underserved populations. The funding will be used to increase staff, launch in additional markets, and further invest in technology solutions that will increase access to much-needed holistic maternity services. Seae Ventures and Kapor Capital led the Series A round and new investors include Wellington Partners, Citi Impact Fund and Rhia Ventures. Founded in 2020 with a mission to improve community outcomes by reimagining how maternity and pediatric care is delivered, Cayaba
Honeycomb is hiring on pocitjobs.com Alayshia Knighten is a seasoned DevOps Engineer with a love of infrastructure and a focus on breaking down technical learning barriers for customers. She recently spoke to POCIT about navigating life in the tech sector as a woman of color and her role at Honeycomb, an observability tool that lets developers quickly make sense of the billions of rows of data needed to fully represent the user experience in your complex and unpredictable systems. Since joining Honeycomb as a Senior Implementation Engineer in October 2020,
Precious Drews’ personal story is one of perseverance and passion. She’s the second youngest of eight children and first became an entrepreneur in middle school – making YouTube videos for her favorite artists in exchange for easy money. Although she didn’t consider herself an entrepreneur – anyone that hears her story can be quick to identify her as a natural-born leader. She was also the first in her family to go to college and later start her own small business – a natural skin care line that uses recycled coffee
The face of female entrepreneurship overall is becoming less white. Black women represent 42% of new women-owned businesses—three times their share of the female population—and 36% of all Black-owned employer businesses. Majority Black women-owned firms grew 67% from 2007 to 2012, compared to 27% for all women, and 50% from 2014 to 2019, representing the highest growth rate of any female demographic during that time frame. But there are deep inequities in access to the financial resources needed to create businesses that become sustainable, which is widely recognized as past the five-year mark which is why
A damning body of research shows how Black women go unseen and unheard as they navigate the healthcare system with celebrities like Beyoncé and Serena Williams also bringing attention to the risks of childbirth for Black mothers by sharing their own personal stories. Doctors have spent decades trying to understand what makes African-American women so vulnerable to losing their babies. Now, there is a growing consensus that racial discrimination experienced by Black mothers has much to do with it. The stark figures, which revealed Black women are three times more likely
Globally, women in tech make up about 28.8% of the tech workforce as of 2020. While this number is an increase from 25.9% in 2018 and 26.2% in 2019, reports still show it could take 12 years for women to have equal representation in tech. In Africa, it will take even longer. Some members of the Latino and Hispanic communities have long held prominent positions in the world’s largest technology companies, and it’s no surprise because of the talent they possess. But Hispanic women reportedly tend to have a more negative experience with workplace DEI efforts,
