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
Chicago teenager, Zaire Horton, will be embarking on a solo trip in his motor glider with plans to visit seven HBCUs that were influential in teaching pioneering Black pilots during World War II. By age 14, Horton was learning how to fly a motor glider and by 15 – he was able to soar the skies solo. When he turned 16, he obtained his glider pilot’s license and at 17 Horton expects to receive his private pilot and aeromechanics license before graduating from high school. According to CBS News, the teen pilot started
Donald Boone, CEO of BoxedUp, an equipment rental company, started the company back in 2019. He would spend hours and even days packaging orders himself with dozens of equipment lying around his family home. Now he runs a three-person company that’s got $2.3M in funding. The 30-something-year-old Maryland native had the realization that in order to make an impact on his community- he needed to find a way to pursue entrepreneurship full time. After a corporate career in engineering, a failed startup, and a career at Amazon, he’s found a
Identitypass today announced that it has raised $2.8 million in seed funding, months after graduating from Y Combinator. The round also comes a few months after the startup raised $360,000 in pre-seed investment last November, bringing its total funding to $3.1 million. The startup, launched in 2021, is focused on making it possible for digital businesses in Africa to easily verify their customers within seconds. It’s a simple compliance and data security platform that allows online businesses to easily verify and confirm a transacting party’s identity using existing forms of identification. Identitypass
This Black Blockchain Engineer Just Raised $3.3M Seed Round For Mueshi, Her Fine Art NFT Marketplace
Ariana Waller — known as Ariana The Techie — is a Miami-based blockchain engineer and the owner and founder of Mueshi, Inc. The company launched to be a marketplace where users will be able to buy, sell, and fractionally invest in fine art NFTs. The 26-year-old has just raised a $3.3 million seed round for Mueshi led by Harlem Capital to establish its place in the industry. Presight VC, CapitalT VC, music luminary and investor, Ted Lucas, Alexandra Wilkis Wilson, Black Venture Capital Consortium, and a cohort of additional strategic angel investors also participated. “I was
Greenwood, the digital banking platform for Black and Latino individuals and business owners, has announced the acquisition of The Gathering Spot, a private membership network focused on the Black community. Greenwood and The Gathering Spot (TGS) share the same mission of supporting financial freedom for minorities through community building, entrepreneurship, group economics, and wealth-building. The combined company has a community of over 1 million people. Together, they will continue to deliver features including community building, personal finance content, and banking services. TGS was launched in 2016. It offers spaces for
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
Founder and CEO Aisha “Pinky” Cole has raised $25m through a Series A funding round that values her four-year old brand at $100m. Cole intends to open 10 Slutty Vegan venues by the end of this year and another 10 in 2023. Her intention is to hire a Chief Operating Officer and Chief Marketing Officer to help manage the company’s growth. She has long believed that Slutty Vegan will be a billion-dollar brand — “bigger than McDonald’s and Burger King and Chick-fil-A,” she says — and wants to make it a household
After winning $1.3 million in scholarships himself, Christopher Gray founded Scholly, an app that helps students easily find scholarships for college. Scholly was featured on ABC’s Shark Tank, landing a deal with Daymond John and Lori Greiner and sparking the biggest fight in Shark Tank history. Scholly has over 4 million users and has helped students raise over 100 million dollars. It was first launched in 2015 with the simple goal of matching students with available scholarships: Input your age, interests, and other demographic information and Scholly would find potential fits. The idea,
Oregon-based ‘A Kids Company About’ secured 93% of the funds from Black investors. He managed to raise a $1 million seed round, where the smallest check was $1,000. A fund headed by Barack Obama’s financial advisor led the Series A round. Backstage Capital and Emerson Collective, both of which invest in underrepresented founders, also participated in the round alongside several Black angels. Jelani Memory, who launched the business in 2019 when it was known as A Kids Book About, also accepted a range of investments as small as $5,000 from
