Caliza has secured $8.5 million funding. Founded in 2021 by Ezra Kebrab, the Brazil-based startup transforms cross-border transactions in Latin America through the use of crypto stablecoins. The company recently secured funding led by Initialized Capital, enabling them to expand their innovative payment solutions that leverage Circle’s USDC (USD Coin), according to TechCrunch. “Caliza is building global financial infrastructure that removes borders from commerce,” Kebrab wrote on LinkedIn. “I’m excited to unveil the latest including our recent $8.5M round.” Bringing Speed and Stability to Cross-Border Payments Unlike traditional transfers made
The founder of Canvas Beauty, Stormi Steele, says she has become the first creator to reach $1 million in sales from a live session on TikTok. Canvas Beauty Steele launched Canvas Beauty in 2018 and sold more than one million units in its first year before going viral on Facebook in 2019 with her Canvas Beauty’s hair blossom serum, according to AfroTech. Canvas Beauty then did $20 million in business in 2020, but by 2022, she was virtually broke even and almost losing the business. However, she bounced back in
Celebrity journalist Brownie Marie has launched a new dating app, ‘The Fox Hunters Club,’ for millennial women seeking older men. Marie is best known for her interviews with celebrities in film, fashion, and music over the past decade. Her day job as a tech executive for startups in Silicon Valley and New York City helped her in the launch of the new tech platform. The Fox Hunters Club The Fox Hunters Club is for women seeking relationships with older men; however, it clearly states that it is not an app for sugar
Cincinnati woman Azizah Nubia created Cincy Black Travel Guide to connect visitors with cultural events and Black businesses in the area. After attending Black Tech Week during its run in the Tri-State area, Nubia noticed other people of color weren’t familiar with Cincinnati’s Black community’s annual events and activities. This sparked her idea to create a platform in July 2023, to make it easier for travellers to find and enjoy what Black people had to offer in the city. Cincy’s Black Travel Guide Cincy’s Black Travel Guide is a digital tool accessed via the website or
Tangent, a technology platform founded by former LinkedIn employee Gary Izunwa and Joe Adams, has secured $1.1 million in funding and officially launched out of beta. Tangent, an employee referral platform aims to make referrals accessible to everyone by increasing tech career opportunities for those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. A Vision For Inclusive Tech Tangent’s approach centers on starting with tech sales roles, engaging companies like Revolut, Stripe, and Amazon to support the transition of talent from diverse backgrounds into the tech ecosystem. This strategy aligns with the broader vision of Tangent—to democratize access to tech careers and create
Postpartum difficulties and a gap in the wellness industry led LaDonna Welch to create a mental health app, Ebony Notes, designed to affirm the Black community. Meet LaDonna Welch Welch advocates for diversity, equity, representation, personal growth, and inclusion. After giving birth to her second child in 2012, she learned she had postpartum and seasonal depression when she went to a doctor to discuss her symptoms. “They suggested that I speak to someone, and I was in my 30s. At this point, I had never even considered talking to anyone,”
A TV series about the rise of Black and Latine startup founders? A definite must-see. Founding in Color, a documentary series by Comcast Universal, has returned to our screens for its second season. The docuseries follows the journeys of 11 Black and Latine startup founders as they navigate the many complexities that come with launching a business as a minority founder. Throughout the series, each entrepreneur shares exclusive insights into the hurdles they have faced as underrepresented founders. The three-part series created by Comcast NBCUniversal LIFT Labs and REVOLT’s creative agency
POC-led embedded integration platform, Paragon, has raised $13 million in a Series A funding round led by Inspired Capital Partners. The funding round also included investors FundersClub and Garuda Ventures. Paragon, founded in 2019 by Ishmael Samuel and Brandon Foo, provides customers with a seamless, self-service experience that fits within the users’ existing workflow. The program, which is still relatively new in the market, has helped several companies integrate with different SaaS apps in a matter of minutes. The platform’s vision is to build a connecting layer for all software
Nana Ghartey’s voice assistant software may have started out in his grandmother’s house, but it’s now being used by the thousands of older and visually-impaired people all over Ghana excluded by Western voice technology. How did he get into tech? Ghartey taught himself mobile app development and built desktop applications, websites, and eventually mobile games, none of which were part of his school curriculum, by reading the programming textbooks that an uncle visiting from the US had left behind. Here’s his story. In 2010, the wealthiest American tech companies had
Bryan Young, CEO, and co-founder of Home Lending Pal, an AI-powered software platform, has a mission to use his technology to increase Black and Brown homeownership beyond the rates of the record in the early 2000s when the rate was 46.4%. At the moment Black homeownership is 43 percent. Ogechi Igbokwe, founder of OneSavvyDollar, told The Grio she is also “worried about the lack of ownership rate” in the Black community. She thinks an additional contributing factor to homeownership reluctance is the prioritization of buying stocks rather than investing in actual
