Janice Omadeke, the founder of the Texas-based Mentor Method, has secured $1.4 million in funding for her business.
And, according to The Business Journals, she’s made history while doing so.
Omadeke is only the 94th Black woman in American history to secure more than $1 million in funding for her business, as of December 2020. That means that less than 100 Black women, from the founding of the United States as we know it until today, have raised more than $1 million in funding for their business.
The funding round was led by Tim Draper’s Draper Associates, Elsewhere Partners founder Chris Pacitti, and Backstage Capital, founded by Arlan Hamilton. Additional funding came from companies that included the Alumni Ventures Group, MATH Venture Partners, and Sorenson Impact Fund.
The Mentor Method, specifically, works with companies to help them not only hire diverse talent (which is important) but to actually create a culturally diverse workplace (in other words, one that takes different cultures into account in an authentic way).
And Omadeke says that it was important to get funding for her company to expand its business, but to forge authentic relationships with strategic partners.
“For us, we wanted not just the capital to deploy, but we wanted strategic partners with areas of expertise that filled in gaps on the team that would help us continue scaling at a faster rate,” Omadeke said.
Tim Draper of Draper Associates was also very excited to get the partnership going.
“Draper Associates is proud to announce a new investment into The Mentor Method. Led by extraordinary Founder Janice Omadeke, The Mentor Method technology and methodology change corporate life, allowing the more experienced employees to bring the novices up to speed,” Draper said in a statement. “We believe The Mentor Method will allow for a more engaging, supportive environment for employees everywhere.”
