In a recent Twitter thread, Brandon Bryant, partner at the early-stage investment firm, Harlem Capital, broke down the steps every startup should know about VC fund returns. Venture capitalists (VCs) buy a stake in a founder’s idea, investing in their company’s balance sheet and infrastructure, before exiting. What VCs are aiming for are sufficient returns at an acceptable level of risk. This is because they, too, have investors whose money they need to multiply. Why should founders care about this? Bryant explains that by running the math, founders can understand
Black-owned real estate tech company, REZI, has secured $100 million in debt financing from Stratos Credit. REZI’s $100M Investment The announcement comes at a time of rapid growth for the platform, which has continuously shaken the status quo. The company, founded in 2016 by Sean Mitchell, has shaken the real estate space by creating space for the next generation of renters. The additional funding will go towards helping the company expand its services to more property owners and new markets. “Stratos has been a core strategic partner of REZI since 2017,” said
Black founder Jim Gibbs decided to launch parking payment app Meter Feeder after facing challenges breaking into the software engineering sector. Who is Jim Gibbs? Jim Gibbs, co-founder and CEO of the digital parking app, Meter Feeder, has built an impressive portfolio in software engineering over the years. Despite his entrepreneurial journey being a lot harder than most, Gibbs has always believed in the success of his business model. Jim Gibbs, a New York native, decided to move to Pittsburgh to attend Carnegie Mellon University as a computer science major. Due
Black-owned finance company Novae LLC has officially launched a new digital tool to help small businesses find grants and tax incentives to help them grow at a faster rate. What is Novae Grants? The new tool launched by Novae LLC, called Novae Grants, allows thousands of users to search through a database filled with finance assistance opportunities from both the private sector and the government. According to the Novae team, the grants in the database range from $500 to $5 million. They have specifically been designed to help underrepresented Black
Invesco QQQ’s startup pitch competition is back; this time, it’s even bigger than before. The competition has returned for its second year in partnership with MaC Venture Capital and Concrete Rose Capital. Invesco’s QQQ Legacy Startup Pitch Competition Invesco QQQ, an exchange-traded investment firm based near Chicago, first launched the Legacy Classic startup pitch competition last year. Initially, the competition was only open to Black founders from HBCUs. However, according to AfroTech, the 2023 competition is open to all Black-founded seed-stage companies with less than $3 million. Since the news was announced,
In a decisive move to fight against the recent overturning of Roe V. Wade, more than one hundred VC firms have come together to create VCs for Repro, a coalition of venture capital firms united in support of abortion rights. Roe v. Wade’s Impact on Black women Since the Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe. V Wade law, abortion is no longer a federal right in the US. As a result, across more than half the US, many women must carry their pregnancies to term. As Black women in the
Despite making moves in the investment world, Kevin Hart has made it clear that he has not taken his eye off entertainment. After investing $500,000 in Black Sands Entertainment earlier this year, Kevin Hart’s Hartbeat Productions has announced it is working with the Black-owned comic house to adapt its “Black Sands” comic series into an animated film and television series. The move has been described as “one of the most significant moments in Black entertainment history” and will see Hartbeat provide Black Sands Entertainment with strategic advisory services as part
The latest figures from Crunchbase have revealed that Black founders raised just $187 million in the third quarter of this year, considerably less than the $350 million WeWork’s Adam Neumann raised for his latest venture. TechCrunch reports that this quarter’s figures mark a significant and continued decline in capital for Black-owned businesses. In total, Black founders have raised just over $2 billion in venture capital funding this year – although this may seem like a lot – it’s a massive decrease from the record-breaking $4.72 billion raised in 2021. Lack of
Funding for African startups has hit a new record between January and June. According to reports, the African market is the first to see more than a single digit of growth which was extremely unpredictable considering the slowdown globally. Venture capital deals within the African region reached a striking $3.5 billion in six months, with no other continent coming marginally as close to Africa’s startup funding growth. Of the 300 companies that benefitted from this funding, 27% were led by female founders or had at least one female founder. This is
When Kwasi Kwarteng delivered the new UK government’s first major fiscal policy package in last week’s “mini-budget”, all eyes were on him in regards to how he would help Britain excel it’s tech scene. His predecessor, Rishi Sunak’s brand centered around being “a startup Treasury” — an agenda cut short when he resigned earlier this year. But it seems Kwarteng has made some key policy changes that some startups say will help fuel their growth. We’ve listed some of them blow: Plan: SEIS is broadened Kwarteng plans to widen access
