PNC Financial Services Group Inc.’s charitable foundation has announced a five-year $16.8 million grant to Howard University to build The Howard University and PNC National Center for Entrepreneurship. The center will support expanded opportunities for Black entrepreneurship with enhanced educational, leadership, and capacity-building resources and programs nationwide. As a part of PNC’s wider commitment to providing over $1.5 billion in funds to create “economic empowerment” for Black Americans, this donation is just one of the financial institution’s countless plans to support the community. It plans to provide $88 billion worth of investments,
Beyonce has expanded her partnership with Peloton and is releasing another series today in the hope of inspiring HBCU students on their fitness journey. Peloton will also be donating their bikes to HBCU fitness facilities this fall as part of the collaboration. The 72-hour fitness session with Beyonce will include 17 classes spanning three days with content streaming globally from Peloton Studios in London and New York. For the first time, Peloton will include classes in three languages — English, German and Spanish — to be more inclusive. According to a press release
OneTen — a group of industry executives with a mission to hire more Black individuals — has just launched its inaugural scholarship program to spearhead 3,500 underserved students toward the tech industry. As a contribution toward OneTen’s commitment, Udacity and Blacks In Technology will lend a hand to support the initiative. Udacity, an American for-profit educational organization, will offer recipients the opportunity to partake in a flexible online program to allow them to pursue a full-time position or continue their educational pursuits. While Blacks In Technology will amplify students’ efforts by providing them
Nzingah Oniwosan first created her 365zing App, which centralizes features found on individual apps into one location to help Black women get on track with their health goals, when she realized she struggled with her own self-care. Ms. Oniwason, the daughter of parents who immigrated from Haiti, found difficulty with staying on track with her self-care for 19 years, trying anything and everything to keep on track when it came to her mental, physical, and spiritual health. She found things that helped in one area but not overall, and that’s
MPharma, a Ghanaian health tech startup is set to open 100 virtual centers across seven markets in Africa over the next six months. The company, founded by CEO Gregory Rockson, has the goal to deliver quality primary care in the communities they serve by providing medical examinations. MPharma already provides about 10,000 physician consultations to patients at the startup’s network of pharmacies. Its also managed to raise over $50 million since inception; this includes a Series C round of $17 million, led by U.K.’s development arm CDC Group last year. Other existing investors include
In the US, accelerators like Techstars and Y Combinator are the most active investors in Black founders, followed by early-stage investors like Backstage Capital and Kapor Capital that focus on diverse founders. As we already know, Black founders often get a small portion of the pie when it comes to investment – which is why it’s essential to highlight the VCs dedicated to investing in minority communities and those who have a history of supporting under-appreciated groups. We’ve sifted through a list created by the Black Founders list of VC firms across the US that
Jay-Z’s Marcy Venture Partners is adding spatial LABS, a metaverse and blockchain-based tech incubator, to its growing list of crypto investments, according to a report from Billboard. Founded by 24-year-old entrepreneur Iddris Sandu, next year, sLABS will launch its first product, “LNQ,” a blockchain-enabled hardware platform that helps onboard young creators to the metaverse, according to widely shared reports. “Iddris has a conscious world view and a youth-centric vision that is innovative and refreshing to witness,” Jay-Z said in a statement. “We share similar parallels in how we imagine impacting
BITCON 2021‘s virtual event kicks off this Wednesday and the conference will feature some of the Black community’s tech icons – from cryptocurrency to cybersecurity. Arlan Hamilton, Judy Smith, Sherell Dorsey, Simon T.Bailey, and Kanika Tolver are among the list of speakers lined up to give away gems to those keen on trailblazing in the industry. A total of 3% of workers at the top 75 technology companies identified as Black and Black founders received just 3% of all US venture capital in 2020. BITCON hopes to change these numbers. The
Fiverr — an Israeli online freelancer platform —has awarded five Black start-up firms $24K through its Future Collective Fellowship Program to help expand their business. The business accelerator is a fellowship for Black entrepreneurs, and five businesses were selected for the program’s inaugural class, and each will receive $24,000. The program is also backed up by 1863 Ventures, a Black-led and D.C.-based nonprofit organization, and Maestra, a women of color-owned business strategy firm, according to Afrotech. “Fiverr’s purpose is to provide anyone, no matter their race, religion, background or beliefs, the opportunity
Klasha, a Lagos and San Francisco-based startup that provides multiple integrations and APIs to facilitate transactions, has raised $2.4 million in seed to scale. Jessica Anuna first founded Klasha in 2018. At the time, the company’s focus was to make it easier for African consumers to purchase products directly from global fashion retailers. Now it has several features and a new business model centered around helping Africans make payments and get the goods they want, regardless of their location, reported TechCrunch. Klasha Checkout also allows international merchants to collect payments from Africa in local currencies and it uses what
